Alice Walker

Writer Alice Walker. Her new book, "Possessing The Secret of Joy," is about Tashi, an African woman who lives most of her life in North America, and yet submits to the tribal custom of female circumcision. Walker's other books include "The Color Purple," which was made into a film starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, and "The Temple of My Familiar." The character Tashi has made peripheral appearances in those books. ("Possessing The Secret of Joy" is published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.)

Writer ALICE WALKER. She's best known for the novel The Color Purple, a seminal account of the life of poor, rural blacks in the south as experienced by the women. The novel revolves around letters that Celie, the principal character, addesses to God after her father has impregnated her for the second time. The Color Purple won the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was later adapted for the screen by Steven Speilberg.