POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY

A provocative novel about an African tribal woman's battle with madness after the trauma of a childhood genital mutilation.

From the author the New York Times Book Review calls "a lavishly gifted writer," this is the searing story of Tashi, a tribal African woman first glimpsed in The Color Purple whose fateful decision to submit to the tsunga's knife and be genitally mutilated leads to a trauma that informs her life and fatefully alters her existence.
Possessing the Secret of Joy was the first novel to deal with this controversial topic and managed to do so in a manner that Cosmopolitan called "masterful, honorable, and unforgettable storytelling."

Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children's books, and volumes of essays and poetry. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1983 and the National Book Award. Her work has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and her books have sold more than fifteen million copies. Along with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Walker, in 2006, was honored as one of the inaugural inductees into the California Hall of Fame.