Posessing the Secret of Joy is the story of Tahsi, an African tribal woman. Told in Tashi's voice and the voices of the people who knew and loved her, it is the shattering account of a young girl whose decision to go through the female initiation ceremony has terrible and tragic consequences. Alice Walker says about this book, 'When I finished The Color Purple and realised that Tashi, a minor character I had created in that book, had left Africa but taken her wound with her to America, I understood it was my duty as an American woman and human being to stay with her.' With this novel Alice Walker takes on a subject of profound importantce to millions of women and men throughout the world, and does so with integrity and grace.