Possessing the Secret of Joy

A Novel

Alice Walker

paperback

$15.95 / £9.99

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 bring 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.

Alice Walker is one of the most prolific and important writers of our times, known for her literary fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Color Purple (now a major Broadway play), her many volumes of poetry, and her powerful nonfiction collections. Her other bestselling books include In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, The Temple of My Familiar, By the Light of My Father’s Smile, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart, and We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (The New Press). Her advocacy on behalf of the dispossessed has spanned the globe. She lives in northern California.