Alice Walker is one of the most prolific writers of our time, known for her literary fiction, including the Pultizer Prize-winning The Color Purple, her many volumes of poetry, and her powerful nonfiction collections. Her advocacy for the dispossessed has spanned the globe. She lives in Northern California.

Rudolph P. Byrd is a professor of American studies and the founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University. His books include The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson and Charles Johnson’s Novels: Writing the American Palimpsest. He played an instrumental role in Emory's acquisition of the papers of Georgia native Alice Walker in 2008-2009 and is the founding co-chair of the Alice Walker Literary Society.

The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker includes compelling conversations between acclaimed writer Walker and other significant literary and cultural figures, including Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, Pema Chodron, Claudia Tate, Margo Jefferson, William Ferris, Paula Giddings, and Amy Goodman. Each conversation represents a different stage in Walker’s artistic and spiritual development; taken together, they offer an unprecedented angle of vision on her career as well as on her personal and political development. Noted literary scholar Rudolph Byrd sets Walker’s work into context with an introductory essay, as well as with a comprehensive annotated bibliography of her writings.

Includes Alice Walker in conversation with the following:

John O’Brien (1973) on her early writing career and inspirations

Claudia Tate (1983) on being part of the emerging coterie of black women writers in the 1970s

Ellen Bring (1988) on her animal rights activism and its importance to her world view and writing

Claudia Dreifus(1989) on politics and fiction writing

Paula Giddings (1992) in Essence

Jody Hoy (1994) on her personal philosophy

Tammy Simon from Sounds True Recordings (1995)

Evelyn White from Ms. (1998)

Pema Chodron (1998) on the importance of Buddhisim to her work and writing

William R. Ferris (2004) on being a black female writer from the South

Margo Jefferson A Conversation from LIVE FROM THE NYPL (2005) on her success with The Color Purple and being a celebrity

Amy Goodman (March 2006) on her politics and activism

George Galloway (November 2006) on why she supports Castro

Marrianne Schnall from feminist.com (December 2006)

Howard Zinn on her Mississippi years, experiences with Zinn as a student, role of the civil rights movement in her work.