Alice Walker Exhibit on Display at Emory University

According to the Associated Press, Walker inaugurated the performance, Thursday, appearing at a two-day symposium at the college featuring notables Gloria Steinem and Howard Zinn--who served as mentor to Walker during her adolescence and young adulthood. The panel discussed Walker's writings, and their relevance in modern America.

The archive includes correspondence between Langston Hughes, Tillie Olsen, and Oprah Winfrey, as well as personal notes written by Walker when she was a girl. Yet the biggest prize is the original, handwritten manuscript of The Color Purple, which later earned accolades from critics--and a Pulitzer Prize for Walker.

"For the reading public, it means that for the first time, we will have access to one of the richest archives in the nation for a living writer," Emory professor and co-founder of the Alice Walker Center, Rudolph Byrd, said. "From her 14th year to her present, she has saved everything from her life as a writer."

For her part, Walker defends her meticulous record-keeping. "My Father taught me you have to keep records," she said in an interview with the AP. "I took that to heart."

According to Walker, she chose Emory because of its proximity to her home and the university's progressive attitudes towards various cultures and religions. "It's a comfortable and high quality institution that treats people of all kinds very decently," she said. "It matters to me to have my papers in a place where the kind of people I come from can come here."

The addition of the collection is the latest in a series of acquisitions the university has accumulated over the past several years. In addition to Walker's papers, Emory owns works from Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie and Georgia's own Flannery O'Connor.