<P> Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of African - American women in the Southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture . The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000--2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence . In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best - loved novels ." </P> <P> Celie is a poor, uneducated, 14 - year - old girl living in the American South in the early 1900s . She writes letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats her harshly and rapes her continually . Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once, a pregnancy that resulted in the birth of a boy she called Adam . Alphonso takes the baby away shortly after his birth . Celie has a second child, a girl she called Olivia whom Alphonso also abducts . Celie's ailing mother dies after cursing Celie on her deathbed . </P> <P> Celie and her younger sister, 12 - year - old Nettie, learn that a man identified only as Mister wants to marry Nettie . Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, instead arranging for Mister to marry Celie . Mister, needing someone to care for his children and keep his house, eventually accepts the offer . Mister and his children, whose mother was murdered by a jealous lover, all treat Celie badly . However, she eventually gets Mister's squalid living conditions and incorrigible children under control . </P> <P> Shortly thereafter, Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celie's house, where Mister makes sexual advances toward her . Celie then advises Nettie to seek assistance from a well - dressed black woman that she had seen in the general store a while back; the woman had unknowingly adopted Celie's daughter and was the only black woman that Celie had ever seen with money of her own . Nettie is forced to leave after promising to write . Celie, however, never receives any letters and concludes that her sister is dead . </P>

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