Call number
Collection
Genres
Publication
Description
Fiction. African American Fiction. HTML: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.… (more)
Subjects
User reviews
It talks
At once both painful and powerful, this book is gripping. It's a book I want to gift every female in my life with. And it raises issues I want to school every male in my life about.
All in all, a powerful, haunting story
The subject of genital mutilation has been dormant in conversations in my world lately, and I welcome the opportunity to be awakened to important concerns in the world today as I've been sidetracked with issues of little relevance to anyone...
I had a professor that claims she was a princess of Yoruba. She opened the discussion of female circumcision, cringing every time it was called "genital mutilation" by us naive westerners. She defended the practice, told us we didn't understand the culture, tried to make us feel ignorant. I continued to stress the word "mutilation" in my comments anyway. I wondered for just a minute if I were really just a stupid judgmental American (probably) that had no valid concern for the women in Africa and elsewhere who endure this brutality--after all, this was an actual African princess with whom I was arguing. But then I remembered that I'm equally horrified by bullfighting and accept no vindication for the "sport" in the name of "cultural difference." So my opinion has remained firm.
I wonder what this professor would think about this novel? She wanted to silence our discussion on the topic by shaming us. She also maintained that there was no sexism in Africa until it was introduced by the white colonialists. These ideas so conflict with this story that I desperately want to have a discussion with people who really know. Has Alice Walker been to Africa? Is she misinformed or has she done her research? Can one African tribe be so drastically different from another but still practice this same "initiation" ceremony? Anyway, these are the questions I have since finishing this novel last night. I'll be delving into some nonfiction right away.
Overall, this is a beautiful and poetic treatment of a vile subject. Makes you wince and cower, covering your wide open eyes. One of the ways in which I was personally touched after reading this was that I feel like I need to just love being me and resist the things that might interfere with that possibility.
Update 2008: I still remember this story every time I visit my friend's farm. The chickens! Oh, the horrors!
Tashi's story, of a lifetime of suffering due to what happened to her body and rift between her cultural beliefs
In this novel Alice Walker looks at the horrifying practice and consequences of female genital mutilation, according to the author's note at the end of book is believed to have been inflicted upon between ninety and
Tashi, the main protagonist of this novel, made a brief appearance in 'The Colour Purple' as an African woman living in America who returned to Africa to have the operation as a gesture of solidarity with the women of her village, 'Possessing the Secret of Joy' is her story.
I must admit that the book's fractured and non-chronological structure initially made it a little difficult for me to differentiate between the various voices, especially as many of them seem had differing names, an African and an American one. Equally as a European I struggled to comprehend why any female would feel the need to return to Africa to undergo such a barbaric experience just to somehow feel whole. However, once I had overcome these obstacles the story had me totally gripped if extremely uncomfortable.
This book raises some interesting questions because alongside genital mutilation it also touches on a possible origin for AIDS and the use of chimpanzees in medical experiments.
"There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth."
Personally I felt that Walker spent a bit too much time sensationalising the actual operation that the plot suffered a little but I fully understand why she felt the need to do so. This is an important message that needs to be made especially when you realise that 'tradition' is being misused as a reason to justify it and it's often men who insist on it's continuance .
"Men refuse to remember things that don't happen to them."