Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman on how Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" legitimised her need to be a writer. She writes how the novel was "about the triumph of the human spirit". Reading it for the first in her early 20s it "blasted open a door which I thought was locked and barred to me. Actually it blasted open a door which I didn't appreciate even existed. A door that could lead to a writing career of my own... this book and its author showed that it was possible for me to not only be an author but to have my own voice."

Producer: Smita Patel.