Possessing the Secret of Joy

Alice Walker

Sep 2011 · The Color Purple Collection Book 3 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

An American woman struggles with the genital mutilation she endured as a child in Africa in a New York Times bestseller “as compelling as The Color Purple” (San Francisco Chronicle).

In Tashi’s tribe, the Olinka, young girls undergo female genital mutilation as an initiation into the community. Tashi manages to avoid this fate at first, but when pressed by tribal leaders, she submits. Years later, married and living in America as Evelyn Johnson, Tashi’s inner pain emerges. As she questions why such a terrifying, disfiguring sacrifice was required, she sorts through the many levels of subjugation with which she’s been burdened over the years.

In Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker exposes the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation in an unforgettable, moving novel.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Possessing the Secret of Joy is the 3rd book in the Color Purple Collection, which also includes The Color Purple and The Temple of My Familiar.

Ratings and reviews

From the first pages, I fell down the rabbit hole and fell in love with the concept of this book and its characters. I wouldn't call it a sequel but rather a close cousin of The Color Purple and Temple of My Familiar. Love, Love, Love this book!

I loved every page of this book and have read it twice. ❤

lovely 🌹

About the author

DIVAlice Walker (b. 1944), one of the United States’ preeminent writers, is an award-winning author of novels, stories, essays, and poetry. In 1983, Walker became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award. Her other novels include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.
/div