The colour purple - Alice Walker

'Dear God: I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me...'

So begins Alice Walker's touching, complex and engrossing prize-winning novel, set in the harsh, segregated world of the Deep South between the wars. Celie has been raped by the man she calls father; her two children are taken away from her; she has been forced into an ugly marriage. She has no one to talk to but God.

Then she meets Shug Avery, singer and magic woman, and Celie discovers not the pain of female rivalry but the love of women.