Alice Walker

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Alice Walker. Author, poet, feminist, and activist, it was her novel The Colour Purple that brought her world wide attention and acclaim.

Presenter0:47

The story of a poor black girl surviving in the deep American South between the wars it is a landmark work, disturbing and exhilarating in equal measure.

Presenter0:57

If one subscribes to the idea that art is a wound turned to light, then Alice Walker's early life proved crucial to her future creations.

Presenter1:06

Shot and blinded in one eye by her brother's B B gun, it was through the isolation of her injury that she began to write. She once described poetry as medicine. She has also said, I know the world's a mess, but there's so much that's gorgeous in it. I wish everybody could have what I have. So, Alice Walker, when you said that, I'm guessing um that you didn't have in mind conventional success as it's judged. What is it that you have that you value so much?

Alice Walker1:33

I'm actually a happy person.

Alice Walker1:35

And I love being on this planet. I love this place that we somehow miraculously arrived at. It just seems incredible to me. And I feel that uh almost every moment, but you know, at least once or twice a day.

Presenter1:53

You have an extraordinary skill of conjuring up these vivid characters for the page, but actually, it's interesting to note when you look at.

Presenter2:01

All of the work you've produced over the decades, you have written about the earth.

Presenter2:06

Maybe more than anything, more than people.

Alice Walker2:08

Why is that?

Alice Walker2:10

Babysat by nature. When I was four my mother had to go off to work in these huge fields that she had to clear with one hoe.

Alice Walker2:19

And my mother always had an amazing garden, and this is where she went for refuge and solace and soul repair. And we lived in shacks that she transformed by planting flowers and using them as a kind of canvas, you know, around our house. So I inherited that naturally from my mother, so that I grow some of my own food. I mean, almost every month of the year I can eat something that I've actually planted.

Alice Walker2:46

And I have chickens, and I would like very much to have a cow, but

Alice Walker2:51

I don't quite see a cow in my future.

Presenter2:53

A well known writer of poetry as well as prose, of course. When you have something to say, something you need to put down in paper, what makes the decision as to whether it's going to make itself into a novel or whether it's going to end up as poetry?

Alice Walker3:06

Well, it depends on how long it lingers in my mind. Poetry can be dispatched pretty easily and quickly. I write sometimes, you know, a poem a day.

Alice Walker3:16

But if I am struggling with or just attracted to a subject of something that's happening in the world or something happening in my psyche,

Alice Walker3:26

I know I'll need a year or two to work on that, and so I know it will be a novel.

Alice Walker3:32

And it's all because these things are already writing themselves in me.

Alice Walker3:36

And they are asking to be brought outside of myself to share with others.

Presenter3:43

How long did it take you to write the colour purple?

Alice Walker3:45

The actual writing took almost exactly a year.

Alice Walker3:49

But I had to transform my my existence. I was living in New York City.

Alice Walker3:54

I was married. Uh, I had to change all of that. I had to move from the city to

Alice Walker4:00

tiny town called Boonville.

Alice Walker4:03

And I was able to write it there because

Alice Walker4:06

That is where the people in it felt most at home.

Alice Walker4:09

It's time for some music, Alice Walker. Tell me about this first disc. This is As by Stevie Wonder. It's really an ecstatic song. It's a song about being so pleased with creation. And I would like to have this when I leave this form and I go into my next whatever it's going to be. I would like this music.

Speaker 44:29

As around the sun, the earth never seems revolving.

Speaker 44:34

The rosebuds know the bloom in early May

Speaker 44:39

Hate knows love's the cure You can rest your mind assure That I'll be loving

Speaker 44:46

Always

Speaker 44:49

Now can't reveal the mystery up to tomorrow.

Speaker 44:53

But in passing we'll grow older every day

Presenter4:58

That was Stevie Wonder and adds. So, Alice Walker, you won the Pulitzer for the Colour Purple in nineteen eighty three. It was your third novel, but your tenth book. And you lived through this huge amount of controversy that was generated by the book that you wrote. And that was from within

Presenter5:13

Your own community, if I can describe it as such. There were a lot of African Americans who said, Well, this book is an outrage. You know, it misrepresents especially black men. It describes our community to the world in a way that is not the way it should be communicated, and we are appalled by what you've written. That must have had a huge impact. It was your creation, and it was something that had taken you a year of your life, and it mattered to you.

Alice Walker5:35

It had taken all of my life.

Alice Walker5:37

to understand what I was writing about.

Presenter5:37

To get to that.

Alice Walker5:41

The censure and the abuse went on.

Alice Walker5:45

for about ten years. It was a long time, but during that period I started a publishing company.

Alice Walker5:51

And I wrote other books and I learned really that creativity is the best answer uh to that kind of ostracism.

Presenter6:00

One of the books you wrote used in its title the phrase honouring the difficult, and part of that was a a diary about your day-to-day life, which also included the making of the then fantastically successful film, The Colour Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg. Authors can have a very, very difficult time, even if they are in deep collaboration with the person making the film, because

Alice Walker6:04

And then

Presenter6:20

the view of the director and the producer and what they think will get people to the box office can be very different from what's been initially written by the creator. How what were the difficulties in that process?

Alice Walker6:32

Well, our set was blessed by I mean, really, by angels, because it was just so full of love that it was palpable. Every single person wanted to do his or her best, and that's why the film is as good as it is. Uh there are some parts that I quibbled with because I didn't understand at the time that it's in the editing that a film is shaped.

Alice Walker6:55

So I noticed that Stephen had shot almost everything I had demanded, you know, that had to be there, but a lot of it ended up cut. And that wasn't uh very good to see. But the story is strong.

Alice Walker7:09

And it's a very robust story, and it's very universal, so that no matter how they cut it, it's always true. And that is what I really love about The Color Purple.

Presenter7:20

Let's move to some music for now. We're on your second choice of the morning. Tell me about this.

Alice Walker7:25

My second song is Took the Children Away by Archie Roach. And Archie Roach is an Aboriginal singer who is now probably considered an elder in the Aboriginal community. And he himself was taken away as a child in the same way that in the United States Native American children were taken from their parents and placed in these boarding schools. Their own language was refused them. The young women often had babies by the priests and the people who were supposed to be teaching them.

Alice Walker7:57

and Archie, he and his wife, Ruby, before she died.

Alice Walker8:01

They went around and they collected the Aboriginal children who had nowhere to go and they took them into their own home.

Alice Walker8:07

And this song is about that experience.

Speaker 48:11

Teaching them how to live theirself

Speaker 48:15

Humiliated

Speaker 48:20

Taught them that, I taught them this.

Speaker 48:24

And I was taught them graduate

Speaker 48:28

Children away.

Speaker 48:32

The children away.

Speaker 48:37

Breaking our mother's heart, carrying us all apart.

Presenter8:42

That was Archie Roach and took the children away.

Presenter8:45

So, Alice Walker, there's Cherokee and even Scottish ancestry on your mother's side. How much does your lineage matter to you?

Presenter8:53

Uh

Alice Walker8:53

I'd like to know where I came from, and I'd like to be able to trace certain traits in myself back to the originals. I've been to Scotland, and England, and Ireland, and I've been to Africa.

Alice Walker9:07

On the Cherokee side I have been to Oklahoma, but that's where they were resettled after the Trail of Tears.

Presenter9:14

And in your more recent history, then, you're, as I understand it, your father's mother.

Presenter9:19

was in fact murdered when he was just eleven. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Do you know what happened?

Alice Walker9:24

Well, my grandmother, Kate.

Alice Walker9:27

She was very beautiful, very beautiful, very black.

Alice Walker9:32

And in a way, because we were supposed to think that black was not beautiful.

Alice Walker9:39

People blamed her for being beautiful.

Alice Walker9:42

And she she was murdered by someone who wanted to have a a relationship with her and she refused. She was a married woman.

Alice Walker9:50

And that's what she said. I'm a married woman, I have children.

Alice Walker9:54

And he he he mur he shot her, he murdered her. Um, and that was when my father was eleven. He never got over it.

Alice Walker10:03

And they would tell the story and they would say, Oh, yeah, well, she was shot.

Alice Walker10:07

Ah, but she was too good looking.

Presenter10:09

Yeah.

Presenter10:10

As though her beauty was taunting, people.

Alice Walker10:12

Right. But somehow her spirit has been a part of my life.

Presenter10:17

And as a little girl, you as I understand it, you adored your grandfathers. But you did find out later that in your grandfather's history, you know, when they had been young men, they had been brutal young men.

Alice Walker10:27

They were terrible. Yes. They were terrible. Well, I like to this is amusing. One was an alcoholic and the other one sold liquor.

Alice Walker10:36

and they were just men full of anger and macho. They battered their their wives, my grandmothers. But when I knew them, they were not like that at all. They were the sweetest old men. They were so precious and so gentle, so loving.

Presenter10:52

So learning that they had those brittle pasts did that teach you about human nature? Did uh aside from probably surprising you, did it inform you?

Alice Walker11:00

It taught me that I was born to be an artist who would help people to see that people change.

Presenter11:06

And in terms of your your childhood, you you were living in the Southern States as a child, and of course at that point segregation would still be enforced in all public facilities. I'm wondering.

Presenter11:17

How that was explained to you by your parents, and how that felt day-to-day living your life as a child.

Alice Walker11:23

Lucky for us, we lived very far in the country. We saw very few white people. And when we went to town, you know, we followed rules about where we could go. And we just followed our parents. And they basically helped us to see white people as very stunted. That was just the way they were. There was nothing you could do about it. They were just like that. Who knew why they were like that?

Alice Walker11:45

And that was helpful.

Alice Walker11:47

They were discussed as if they were the weather, you know, like, oh, well, you know, that's that's how they are. You know, what we try to, you know, encourage in our children, they beat it out of their children. You know, they don't want their children to be kind. You know, they don't want their children to ever see a black person and think of them as human.

Alice Walker12:03

Yeah.

Presenter12:03

It's time for a little bit more music. We're going to listen to your third choice of the morning.

Alice Walker12:07

This disk returning.

Alice Walker12:10

is by Jennifer Berezon, and she is creating the music that I think is so right for our time of understanding that we have to always honor the earth because that is to whom and to what we return.

Speaker 412:25

You're only a horseshoe.

Speaker 412:39

Yeah, Maya Holo.

Speaker 112:39

Emaya Mole.

Speaker 412:43

Oh no, yes, my young.

Presenter12:44

Oh yes.

Presenter12:49

Only yeah.

Presenter12:52

That was Jennifer Berzin and Returning. So, Alice Walker, when you were eight, as we know, one of your brothers

Presenter12:59

He shot you in the eye you were playing, and um it was an accident, I guess. Um a very, very traumatic thing to happen to any child, and a pivotal moment for you.

Alice Walker13:09

Well, I love the way you said I guess, because that was the pivot the pivotal point.

Alice Walker13:14

He was actually shooting at me. So it was always very confusing to have it passed off as just an accident. And it's true he was a child as I was a child, but so it was very challenging.

Alice Walker13:28

to figure out how to deal with that emotionally.

Alice Walker13:31

And to make matters worse, my other brother, knowing that my parents would be very angry if I said what had happened, if I told the truth at that point,

Alice Walker13:41

My other brother said uh you have to tell them that you were hit in the eye by a piece of wire.

Alice Walker13:48

and that way we won't be punished.

Alice Walker13:50

And I didn't want to see them vanish, so I went along with that.

Alice Walker13:53

But the consequences were so terrible

Alice Walker13:56

That's one of the places where I learned how important it is to tell the truth and not.

Alice Walker14:02

Lie for any reason.

Alice Walker14:05

Yeah.

Presenter14:05

I have read varying accounts of how you either did or didn't get medical treatment that day. Can can you put me right?

Alice Walker14:11

Well, for a long time I didn't know either. I mean, I was just a child in pain, and in fact my sister says I screamed a lot, which I don't remember at all. But apparently my brother, Jimmy, and my father went to the highway and tried to flag down a car to take me to a doctor, but nobody stopped.

Alice Walker14:30

Very few black people had cars. So this was, you know, this was very painful, but I didn't know about that part until much later.

Presenter14:38

And you were one of eight children, but you suffered isolation as a result of your injury.

Alice Walker14:42

Well, yes, because children make fun of you if you're different.

Presenter14:45

Yeah.

Alice Walker14:46

So I retreated and I found solace in nature and in books. I love Jane Eyre and I love Gulliver's Travels and um

Alice Walker14:57

My mother, we had catalogues and we I would read anything.

Presenter15:01

When will look at Europe?

Presenter15:02

Activism, and some people might, over the years I suppose, have used the term radicalism.

Presenter15:08

Is it informed by all this early experience?

Alice Walker15:11

Uh

Presenter15:11

Uh

Alice Walker15:11

Oh, yes. I know exactly how sad and traumatized a child can be by any injury. That's why wars are so impossible for me to accept.

Alice Walker15:22

Let's have some more music.

Presenter15:23

Yeah.

Alice Walker15:23

Do you

Presenter15:23

We're uh we're gonna listen to your fourth choice.

Alice Walker15:26

I had this operation which helped to change my my feeling about my disfigurement uh when I was fourteen.

Alice Walker15:34

And the beautiful boy that I had fallen in love with when I was six years old, and he was eight.

Alice Walker15:39

was now in high school as I was about to go in high school, and we resumed our courtship.

Alice Walker15:45

So, this is one of the songs that we listen to and we dance to. But as I hear it now, as someone almost seventy.

Alice Walker15:54

What I realize I love about it is that when I hear Your Precious Love by Jerry Butler, instinctively I think of the earth.

Alice Walker16:02

I think that that's the love that is so precious to me, that I could not live without.

Speaker 416:11

As you hold

Speaker 416:13

In love with me.

Speaker 416:15

Our love will grow high.

Speaker 416:19

Deeper than any sea.

Speaker 416:24

And of all the things that I want

Speaker 416:31

In this whole wide world is just

Speaker 416:35

For you to say that you'll be my girl

Presenter16:41

Isn't it sweet? It is very sweet. It's Jerry Butler and your precious love. So Alice Walker, when you left home you left with three gifts from your mother. She said that she felt it was all you needed to be independent, and those gifts were a suitcase, a typewriter, and a sewing machine.

Presenter16:57

Was she right?

Alice Walker16:58

Yes, she was.

Alice Walker17:00

With the typewriter I could write and I could uh travel with my little blue suitcase and I could make my own clothing. I made my own prom dress, and it was taffeta and net, and it was quite stunning.

Presenter17:13

And you've travelled far and wide and and written about your experiences in Eastern Congo, in Rwanda, the Gaza Strip, Israel. Your first significant journey was to Russia when you were eighteen.

Presenter17:23

That was nineteen sixty two, so that was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. So were you there at a particularly interesting time in the history between Russia and America?

Alice Walker17:32

I was. I was there because there was all this talk about them annihilating each other, and I just thought it was stupid.

Presenter17:36

And I just

Alice Walker17:39

I was extremely ignorant. All I knew was that I wanted to see these people and I wanted to tell them that I did not believe in this. I didn't I didn't agree. I started off in Finland. I took the train down to to Moscow.

Alice Walker17:52

And we all just, you know, as young people do, we hung out with each other and, you know, everybody had a bottleica and everybody was trying to sing.

Alice Walker18:00

It was wonderful.

Alice Walker18:01

And I got to see that these were just people living and they were not

Alice Walker18:06

evil people sitting around every minute thinking about how to bomb America. I had a a sense that I wasn't I was being badly informed.

Alice Walker18:16

I never trusted the media ever, and part of that was because it had lied always about black people. So there was no reason to think it would tell the truth.

Presenter18:27

To be surrounded by institutions, whether it's the press or the law or the government, that you feel is not serving you in any way that is equal to people of a different colour, must be a not just a sobering, but possibly a terrifying realization for a young woman.

Alice Walker18:43

Oh, it's absolutely terrifying, yes. And it makes for a real uh empathy with people who are suffering. You know, I I feel close to anybody who is badly paid or not paid.

Alice Walker18:56

I have a real uh affinity with the working class. You know. I've never really wanted to get out of my class. I've always felt that by some stroke of love and imagination and genius and beneficence I was lifted out by education.

Alice Walker19:15

And that I had a responsibility to whoever was still where I was, where I

Presenter19:19

You once said that activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet. You you've never felt a sense that you could be defeated by these great institutions, that actually, you know, it was too much to hope for, that you could have equality.

Alice Walker19:34

Uh well, you know, I wanted to write poetry, and when I was at Spelman College I could have gone to uh Paris.

Alice Walker19:43

But I knew that I needed to go to Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. I saw.

Alice Walker19:51

that if we keep abandoning

Alice Walker19:54

Our own people and moving to Paris symbolically, we would never be able to be free. Let's have some more music then. Tell me why you've chosen this disc.

Alice Walker20:03

The next piece is the chant of Meta.

Alice Walker20:07

And it is an amazingly soothing, calming meditational chant, and I tend to put this on when I have been travelling and I've seen just unbelievably vicious and horrible things done to

Alice Walker20:23

People rivers, mountains.

Speaker 120:25

Be free from enmity and danger.

Speaker 120:29

Be free from mental suffering.

Speaker 120:33

Be free from physical suffering.

Speaker 120:37

May they take care of themselves.

Speaker 120:40

Happy

Speaker 120:44

May all beings be free from suffering.

Speaker 120:49

May whatever they have gained not be lost.

Presenter20:57

Eemi Ui with the chant of Meta. So, Alice Walker, in nineteen sixty seven then, uh you married the human rights lawyer Melvin Levental. You then moved as a couple to Mississippi, where it was illegal to be an interracial married couple.

Presenter21:11

Every marriage is in its way a public declaration. Yours, it seems, was a particularly public declaration. What sort of reception did you get?

Alice Walker21:20

Well, first of all, I believe that you just break all the rules that are bad.

Alice Walker21:24

Nobody should be able to make a law that tells you who you can love or who you can marry.

Alice Walker21:30

I mean, that's absurd. We shouldn't stand for it for a minute.

Alice Walker21:34

And the reception well, you know, the clan used to leave their calling card on our porch.

Alice Walker21:40

You know, they had that the the Ku Klux Klan actually has a calling card that says the eyes of the Klan are upon you. And the black people were, of course, really frightened. They thought we'd never lived through the first week.

Alice Walker21:53

But we were so in love that all of the racist behavior and all of their attempts to make us feel that we were breaking a law just seemed absurd.

Presenter22:01

Uh

Alice Walker22:02

And his j

Presenter22:02

Uh

Alice Walker22:02

Uh

Presenter22:02

Uh

Alice Walker22:03

But

Presenter22:03

Yeah.

Alice Walker22:03

Uh

Presenter22:03

family and your African American family, what was their reception to your marriage?

Alice Walker22:07

Well, his father had abandoned him when he was a boy, so I never met him. But his mother, she was just outraged. She was she didn't like it. And my parents were, I think, deeply hurt, but they would never show that. You finished your first novel just

Presenter22:21

It was days before you had your daughter, Rebecca.

Alice Walker22:23

Rebecca.

Presenter22:24

And from then on you were a working artist, you were writing and you were being a mother. How did you find that?

Alice Walker22:30

I found it very hard. The first year or so, uh it was difficult because I never had any help.

Alice Walker22:37

My husband was always working uh often

Alice Walker22:41

In danger. Our car had a bullet hole right through the front windshield and

Alice Walker22:46

It was very trying and I was there with the baby a lot alone.

Presenter22:51

How did you cope?

Alice Walker22:52

Well, after a year she started going for three hours to a little daycare down the street, and that gave me three hours to write in the morning.

Alice Walker23:01

And when did the violence and the threats stop, or did they stop? Well, they got a little better because my my husband actually uh started sounding like a Southerner, which was quite grotesque.

Alice Walker23:13

But fortunately he was very handsome, so you know. But anyway, uh, he became quite famous and he was so.

Alice Walker23:21

persuasive and even the people, the lawyers who were in opposition to him and to legal rights for black people, they had to admire him.

Alice Walker23:31

But for me it was it was imperative to leave. So I went to the Radcliffe Institute. I had a stipend.

Alice Walker23:39

And I stayed there and I worked and I took my daughter.

Presenter23:41

And you're a long time divorced now. You've never throughout the decades remarried. I'm wondering if that is to do with uh a developed feminist standpoint, or is that simply to do with your own personal choices?

Alice Walker23:52

I never planned to marry. The only reason I married was that it was illegal. I proposed to him. Did you get that on one knee?

Alice Walker23:59

No. I don't g I don't do n

Presenter24:01

These

Presenter24:04

You once said, I'm not a lesbian, I'm not bisexual, I'm not straight, I'm curious.

Alice Walker24:10

That means I'm free to love whoever I choose.

Alice Walker24:13

And I intend to.

Alice Walker24:15

And I just think it's the most wonderful thing in the world, and I will not be put in a box.

Alice Walker24:21

Time for some more music. Tell me about your next choice then. We're on your sixth. My next choice is The Promise by Tracy Chapman. Why have you chosen this?

Alice Walker24:29

This is one of the most beautiful songs about longing and about trying to be true to someone when you have to be away.

Alice Walker24:36

And I love it, it's a wonderful song.

Speaker 424:39

If you

Speaker 424:42

Wait for me.

Speaker 424:46

The night

Speaker 424:49

Come through.

Speaker 424:53

Although I've tried.

Speaker 424:56

Boot five.

Speaker 425:00

I always hope

Speaker 425:03

He plays for

Speaker 425:07

Uh

Presenter25:09

Tracey Chapman with The Promise. So, Alice Walker, when you were introduced and when I introduced you today, I said Alice Walker, novelist, poet, campaigner. You've heard all that before, but also Alice Walker, mother and grandmother. You used a very acute and poignant phrase about the estrangement between you and your daughter. You said it is a death-in-life situation.

Alice Walker25:30

Yes, uh because my daughter is still um you know somewhere. I don't know exactly where she lives and I don't think she would care for me to know. Uh and of course I will always love her deeply. I mean this is th the daughter that I knew I will always adore. The person who is n no longer quite my daughter, uh I wish well, but but I can't claim to to know who that is.

Presenter25:59

I have seen very very beautiful pictures of you with your daughter throughout the ages.

Presenter26:05

Um given how close you were and how involved you were in her life, how do you cope personally with not seeing her?

Alice Walker26:13

It's been very difficult. Uh

Alice Walker26:17

But again

Alice Walker26:18

What I'm learning is that life always gives you uh a gift from every disaster if you survive.

Alice Walker26:26

So I now feel that I am the grandmother of many grandchildren in my life and also just kind of on the planet. I I see a role for the the sort of universal grandmother.

Alice Walker26:39

And also I think that that I feel the mother of more people than I ever thought possible, since, you know, I I no longer have this connection, the mother daughter connection with my own physical daughter.

Alice Walker26:53

But I have it with so many other

Presenter26:55

But women and men too. I mean, you some you seem to me to be somebody who has great certainties about their path in life, who seems sure of themselves. Do you do you question yourself? Do you think was it, what did I do? You don't think that.

Alice Walker27:07

Oh, I do. You do? Of course I do. Well, I beat myself up quite properly about everything.

Alice Walker27:13

But my response to my uh beating up on myself is that I really did my best. It wasn't the hovering mother. My tradition is that you love your children, you take care of them, but you also love the neighbor's children and the children in the country that's being bombed.

Alice Walker27:29

And I can't really be any other kind of mother except the kind that mothers, you know, generally.

Alice Walker27:36

as well as specifically.

Presenter27:39

It takes a lot from a person to create and create solid, great works of art, and that's something that you have consistently done. Do you think you have put the creation of

Presenter27:48

Your art above all else.

Alice Walker27:50

I think I have, and I think it's because that's the charge that I've been given, and I I couldn't do otherwise.

Alice Walker27:58

Let's have some Music then. We're on your seventh choice. Tell me about disc seven.

Alice Walker28:03

Mother, well

Alice Walker28:05

Having said all that about, you know, my own mothering and responsibilities, there is a way in which the longing for the mother remains no matter what. And as much as I adored my own mother, I missed her terribly when she had to work and I had to be in school. So John Lennon was someone when I when I heard him singing Mother,

Alice Walker28:30

He hit just that place of pain and sorrow

Alice Walker28:34

when the mother leaves, you know, whether it's your mother, whether you're the mother. And so I it's it's one of my favorite songs, although it always makes me cry.

Speaker 428:47

You let me

Speaker 428:51

But I never had

Speaker 429:01

I wanna do

Speaker 429:06

Didn't want me

Speaker 429:13

Yeah.

Speaker 429:20

I just gotta tell you

Presenter29:35

That was Mother by John Lennon. So Alice, the colour of purple now is a set text in some schools here in the UK. What message, I wonder, would you most like students who study that work to come away with?

Alice Walker29:47

Believe in your own perfection.

Alice Walker29:49

In your natural being you are an expression that is desired, you know, otherwise you wouldn't be here. And to, you know, just insist on having joy while you're here.

Alice Walker30:01

You live in Mexico now. How much of your time do you spend alone?

Alice Walker30:05

I spend as much as I can, but I also tend to fall in love and I

Alice Walker30:11

love whoever I'm with very much and it's very hard for us to be apart. In fact, I have been known to go on retreats trying to get away and my people show up on the doorstep.

Alice Walker30:22

Are you in love now?

Alice Walker30:24

I'm always in love. Are you? Except those periods that I need to not be in love so I can think.

Alice Walker30:30

And you know, the thing about lovers is that often they just like to talk a lot.

Alice Walker30:35

And that's very challenging.

Presenter30:37

Do you lay down the rules? Do you say I need a few hours every day where you're not talking?

Alice Walker30:40

I know, I try that and some are better at being quiet than others, but you know, we work it out.

Presenter30:47

Well, as you know I hope you know we we're gonna now cast you away on to a desert island, so of course you will have solitude.

Alice Walker30:51

Uh

Presenter30:52

Yeah.

Alice Walker30:52

Mm-hmm.

Presenter30:53

And I'm wondering what shape you imagine your days taking.

Alice Walker30:57

Well, if there's a hammock on the island I will be in the hammock periodically, you know, throughout the day. I'll take little naps and I'll read in the hammock, and I will also try my hand at something I loved when I was little, fishing. Tell me about discates. What are we going to hear now, Alice?

Alice Walker31:14

Strong admirer and lover of Beethoven.

Alice Walker31:17

because of his life of struggle and suffering. And what is so amazing is that he continued to hear the music of nature.

Alice Walker31:27

in his deafness, and he was able to continue to create great music.

Alice Walker31:32

So one of my favorite pieces is Ode to Joy.

Alice Walker31:35

Because I think that that is a place humans can come to after great suffering. And this is my own experience of being able to go into nature and feeling the intense joy of that connection, no matter what craziness is going on with humans.

Presenter32:53

That was the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, played there by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir George Shalty.

Presenter33:00

So, Alice Walker, we come to the point now where I'm going to give you the books. Every castaway gets the books. You get the Bible?

Presenter33:06

And the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along to the island. What else would you like to take?

Alice Walker33:12

I would like to take Human Race Get Off Your Knees by David Ick.

Presenter33:17

Okay.

Alice Walker33:17

Uh

Presenter33:17

That's your book. And um, a luxury too. What luxury would you like?

Alice Walker33:21

I would like a solar powered Vitamix so that I can make my own green smoothies every morning.

Presenter33:27

Yours. And also one disc from the eight to save. If you had to pick just one of these eight discs, which one would you save? I would save as by Stevie Wonder. Right. It's yours, Alice Walker. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you so much. It's been fun.

Speaker 133:38

Right.

Presenter34:01

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website: bbc.co. uk slash radio four.