SALAMISHAH TILLET first read Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer and National Book award-winning novel The Color Purple when she was 15. The powerful story of three Black women, Celie, Shug and Sofia, surviving in rural Georgia in the early 20^th century while confronting domestic violence, sexual violence and white racial oppression helped awaken feelings of racial pride and Black feminism in her. Over the years, Tillet has revisited Walker’s seminal book many times and as a rape and sexual assault survivor has found strength and healing in its portrait of sisterhood. This hour, Salamishah Tillet, professor at Rutgers and New York Times  critic-at-large, joins us to talk about her new book, In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece. It’s about her personal experience with Walker’s story, about her conversations with Walker and about the influence The Color Purple, and the subsequent film and Broadway adaptations, have had on generations of Black women, literature and culture.