50 free Alice Walker trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Alice Walker grew up the eighth child of Georgia sharecroppers, lost an eye to a brother's BB gun at eight, graduated valedictorian of a segregated high school and became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Along the way she found and marked Zora Neale Hurston's unmarked grave, coined the word womanist, and wrote The Color Purple, the novel Spielberg, Broadway and Blitz Bazawule have all adapted. These 50 questions cover the life, the books and the adaptations. Easy ones ask about Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey; the middle tier reaches Spelman and Sarah Lawrence, Meridian, the pants business in Memphis, Quincy Jones's score, the eleven winless Oscar nominations, LaChanze and Cynthia Erivo; the hard tier wants Muriel Rukeyser, Jean Toomer's epitaph line, Wild Tree Press, the Anson County shoot, Possessing the Secret of Joy and the ALA challenged-books rank. Everyday Use and The Third Life of Grange Copeland get their turn too. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a book club.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Alice Walker was born in 1944 in which US state?
Georgia
Her parents were sharecroppers in the rural farming town of Eatonton.
Q 02How did the eight-year-old Alice Walker lose the sight in her right eye?
A brother's BB gun
With no car to reach a doctor, the injury went untreated; she turned to reading and writing afterwards.
Q 03From which college did Alice Walker graduate in 1965?
Sarah Lawrence
She transferred there from Spelman after her mentor Howard Zinn was fired.
Q 04At which historically Black women's college did Walker study before transferring?
Spelman
Georgia gave her a full scholarship as her high school's valedictorian.
Q 05What was the title of Alice Walker's first book, a 1968 poetry collection?
Once
She slipped the poems under the office door of her professor, poet Muriel Rukeyser.
Q 06Which poet and mentor passed Walker's student poems to her literary agent?
Muriel Rukeyser
Once was published four years later by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Q 07In Walker's first novel, what is the name of Grange Copeland's granddaughter?
Ruth
Grange moves from a low moral and economic point to stability and redemption across three lives.
Q 08Pratibha Parmar's 2013 documentary about Alice Walker is titled what?
Beauty in Truth
Parmar also co-wrote Warrior Marks with Walker in 1993.
Q 09Whose unmarked grave did Walker locate and mark in Florida in 1973?
Zora Neale Hurston
Her Ms. magazine essay "Looking for Zora" helped revive interest in the novelist and folklorist.
Q 10The epitaph Walker chose for Hurston's grave, "A Genius of the South", comes from whose poem?
Jean Toomer
The line is from "Georgia Dusk" in his book Cane; the marker also got Hurston's birth year wrong.
Q 11Walker coined which term, meaning "a Black feminist or feminist of color"?
Womanist
It first appeared in her 1983 collection In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens.
Q 12Walker's 1983 essay collection, where she defined her term for Black feminism, is titled what?
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
The book's title essay honours the creativity of Black women denied formal outlets.
Q 13Walker's 1976 novel Meridian centres on a young woman involved in which cause?
Civil rights
Meridian Hill attends the fictional Saxon College as the movement turns violent.
Q 21What is Mister's first name, which Celie eventually begins using, in The Color Purple?
Albert
He proposes they remarry "in the spirit as well as in the flesh"; she declines.
Q 22The Color Purple appears on the ALA's most-challenged books list for 2000-2010 at what rank?
17
Explicit content, particularly violence, is the usual objection.
Q 23Which 1992 Walker novel follows Tashi, a minor character from The Color Purple?
Possessing the Secret of Joy
It is set among the Olinka, Walker's fictional West African people, and insists "torture is not culture".
Q 14The Color Purple is written in which literary form?
Letters
Celie writes to God, and later the sisters' hidden correspondence drives the plot.
Q 15Besides the Pulitzer, which major US prize did The Color Purple win in 1983?
National Book Award
Both awards came the year after publication.
Q 16Who is the protagonist of The Color Purple?
Celie
She is a poor girl in rural Georgia in the early 1900s who writes letters to God.
Q 17In The Color Purple, what is the name of Celie's younger sister?
Nettie
She goes to Africa with missionaries, and her letters are hidden from Celie for years.
Q 18Which character in The Color Purple is a blues singer and Mister's long-time mistress?
Shug Avery
She becomes Celie's closest companion and teaches her to value herself.
Q 19In The Color Purple, Sofia is jailed after hitting whom?
The mayor
She is sentenced to 12 years and ends up working as the mayor's wife's maid.
Q 20What business does Celie start after leaving Mister in The Color Purple?
Making pants
She sets up in Memphis, Tennessee, with Shug and Squeak.
Q 24Who directed the 1985 film of The Color Purple?
Steven Spielberg
It was his eighth film and a deliberate departure from summer blockbusters.
Q 25Who played Celie in the 1985 film of The Color Purple?
Whoopi Goldberg
It was her breakthrough role and won her a Golden Globe.
Q 26Who composed the score for the 1985 film, the first Spielberg film not scored by John Williams?
Quincy Jones
He also produced the film and brought the project to Spielberg.
Q 27Which talk-show host made her film debut as Sofia in the 1985 Color Purple?
Oprah Winfrey
She later produced the Broadway musical and the 2023 film.
Q 28How many Academy Award nominations did the 1985 Color Purple receive without a single win?
11
It tied The Turning Point for the most nominations with no win.
Q 29In which state was the 1985 film of The Color Purple shot?
North Carolina
Anson and Union counties stood in for rural Georgia.
Q 30Who played Mister in the 1985 film of The Color Purple?
Danny Glover
Margaret Avery played Shug and earned an Oscar nomination.