The Color Purple; by Alice Walker.

Colour Purple arrived on the scene with a thunderclap and lightening - oscars went to Out Of Africa, because it was more convenient, though that was very deserving and excellent as well. The books are more than worth reading in both cases.

Rural poverty and injustices of every sort victimising the weakest in that society - young girls, especially those of the lowest rungs in social order that refuses to give way to more just and equitable arrangements.

How the woment that grow from those girls survive and grow to find life and identity and some semblance of happiness or at least peace, is worth reading.

I would recommend it to anyone over twleve, and for anyone over eighteen it is almost a must read.

This has a history of a suppressed people, and in as much as it is about people who were poor and had been slaves for a long time and had lost their roots and civilisation and left adrift after emancipation, it is of dual suppression - the story of women of African ancestry living in US at a time that I am not sure is specified, but some time between civl war and 70s.

It does have all sorts of things you might not like but is uplifting because they triumph over the longest possible odds.