Book review : The books that inspired Sue Currell: “AliceWalker’s ‘The Color Purple’ was the book thatled me back into academia after I had droppedout of an English degree.”

Sue Currell is Senior Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Sussex. Here she discusses her turbulent years as a student at university the first time around, and how Alice Walker’s work made an enormous impact, having come across The Color Purple on a course surveying women writers. Sue also notes how American Studies, which takes in history, politics, popular culture, film and art, suits those with eclectic interests and anyone who strives to understand the whole picture.