Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Novel (1992)

The stunning New York Times bestseller, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, reissued in a handsome new edition.

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, out of print for a number of years, 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." The New Press is proud to bri... full descriptionng the book back into print with a new preface by the author addressing the book's initial reception and the changed attitudes toward female genital mutilation that have come about in part because of this book. (less description)

Author: Alice Walker

Categories: Essays, Genre Fiction, Erotica, Short Stories, World Literature, Classics, Women's Fiction, Literature & Fiction