Recommendations
Books Like Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
For readers of the Tashi anti-FGM novel
If you loved Possessing the Secret of Joy — Tashi's devastating story of female genital mutilation, the multiple voices, and Walker's explicit political argument against cultural violence against women — these books share the same political seriousness about violence against women's bodies, the same refusal of cultural relativism, and the same engagement with African and African American women's lives.
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Buy on AmazonThe Color Purple
by Alice Walker
The essential predecessor — Tashi is a character from The Color Purple, and the emotional weight of her story in Possessing the Secret of Joy depends on knowing who she is; Celie's liberation is the companion act to Tashi's martyrdom.
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Buy on AmazonBeloved
by Toni Morrison
Morrison's Nobel and Pulitzer-winning novel — the companion in African American women's literary fiction about the acts women commit to resist violence against their bodies; Sethe's killing of her daughter and Tashi's killing of M'Lissa are companion acts of terrible love and resistance.
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Buy on AmazonA Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
Hosseini's novel about Afghan women — the companion in fiction about women's bodies, cultural violence, and the structures that imprison women in the name of culture; Mariam and Laila's Afghanistan is the companion to Tashi's fictional Olinka.
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Buy on AmazonThe Temple of My Familiar
by Alice Walker
Walker's companion novel — the intermediate novel in which Tashi also appears; the companion in her extended fictional world and her spiritually engaged fiction about African and African American women.
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Buy on AmazonMeridian
by Alice Walker
Walker's civil rights novel — the companion in her fiction about African American women who sacrifice themselves for a political cause; Meridian Hill's civil rights martyrdom and Tashi's martyrdom are companion portraits of the cost of political commitment for Black women.
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Buy on AmazonTheir Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston's masterpiece — the essential predecessor in African American women's fiction about a woman's right to her own body and desire; Walker championed Hurston, and Janie Crawford's quest is the predecessor to Tashi's damaged quest.
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Buy on AmazonThe Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
Hosseini's novel about Afghanistan — the companion in fiction about cultural violence and the costs paid by individuals caught between tradition and modernity; the Afghan setting is the companion to Tashi's African setting in a novel about what cultures demand of their members.
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Buy on AmazonReading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi
Nafisi's memoir about reading Western literature under the Iranian Revolution — the companion in non-fiction about women's intellectual and bodily autonomy under political and cultural repression; the Iranian women readers are the companion to Tashi in their resistance to the structures that seek to control women.
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