Emory’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Books Library (MARBL) is sifting through more than 120 boxes of journals, correspondence, photos and other materials from renowned author Alice Walker that arrived at Emory on Dec. 20 after a many-year search for a library to house them.

MARBL Director Steve Enniss said the boxes contain early manuscripts of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, audio tapes, school grade reports and a scrapbook Walker compiled when she was 15 years old.

“She’s really been a compulsive documenter of her own life story,” Enniss said.

The University announced on Dec. 18 that after years of consideration, Walker had decided to place her personal papers at Emory’s MARBL. The collection also includes Walker’s correspondence with such notables as Steven Spielberg, poet Maya Angelou and actress Whoopi Goldberg, among others.

Enniss said his staff will spend the next several months examining each document and artifact within the collection with the goal of making it available to scholars from a variety of institutions and disciplines.

Rudolph Byrd, professor in the African-American studies department and co-chair of the Alice Walker Literary Society, echoed Enniss’ sentiments about the broad appeal of the archive. He said Walker’s own intellectual interests span a wide range of disciplines, including theology, women’s studies and gay and lesbian studies.

“She’ll speak to [students] and others about the meaning of being a human being,” he said. “It’s a tremendous treasure for us all.”

Materials in the archive demonstrate a young Alice Walker’s precocious awareness of her future as a major writer, Byrd noted. He said one of his favorite items in the collection is a scrapbook Walker compiled when she was about 15 years old. It’s dated 1959 and the title page reads, “Poems of a Childhood Poetess.” He recalled finding the scrapbook, then tied together with string, while visiting Walker at her home in California.

“I was so excited by that; I couldn’t wait to have a look at it,” he said.

It was that interest in Walker’s work displayed by Byrd and other Atlanta scholars that helped eventually convince Walker to place her archives at Emory, the author wrote in a public statement.

She said Emory’s library was not originally among those she considered to house her collection. But after visiting the campus on several occasions and meeting with Emory administrators, Byrd and other members of the Alice Walker Literary Society, the Georgia-born author said she felt confident in placing her archives in the state of her birth.

“I knew that though I might never live in Georgia again, my first 17 years growing up Georgian made a powerful imprint on my spirit and that it was the beauty of the rural community into which I was born that accounts for much of my passion, optimism and faith in the goodness of others,” Walker wrote.

The author attended Spelman College for two years before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College (N.Y.). Faculty from Spelman sit on the board of the Alice Walker Literary Society. Byrd said faculty from both Spelman and Emory are already discussing possible courses that would allow students at both schools to collaborate in the study of the Walker materials.

The Walker acquisition is the most recent in a series of high-profile coups for the library. World-renowned author Salman Rushdie announced that he would place his papers at MARBL in October 2006. The library also acquired the papers of Britain’s late-poet laureate Ted Hughes shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, Byrd said having Walker’s archive creates a chance for the University to continue a relationship with the author. Walker has spoken on campus several times within the past few years — most recently in November 2006 — and will return in March to do a book-reading. Whether this will lead to the author’s joining the Emory faculty — as Rushdie did this past spring — is unclear right now, Byrd said.

“We’ll just take it a semester at a time. She is very protective of her time and the freedom to write,” he said, noting that Walker is still a young and prolific writer. “We expect there will be many more books coming from her.”

— Contact Rachel Zelkowitz.