Possessing the Secret of Joy

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 questio