Pratibha Parmar is the writer, director and producer of Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth. This first film biography about writer and activist Alice Walker tells Walker’s dramatic life story with poetry and lyricism.

Watch Interview with Pratibha Parmar

Parmar was drawn to the “incredibly compelling life” of Walker, who was born and raised on a plantation in a paper-thin shack and went on to become the first African-American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In this interview, Parmar talks about Walker’s literary canon, the challenge of visual storytelling when the topic is literature, and what Parmar wanted to achieve in making this film, both artistically and as a record of Walker’s life and contributions to women’s history.

Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, premieres nationally Friday, February 7 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).