Novelist Alice Walker combines the wealth of information characteristic of ethnographic studies with deep insight into womanhood and identity in her novel 'Possessing the Secret of Joy.' The novel revolves around the development of a sense of identity of a woman who underwent female circumcision in her native Africa and who then migrated to the US. The protagonist gains an understanding of her double identity as African and American, and her stories are presented as a series of interviews reminiscent of ethnographic material.

Reading Possessing the Secret of Joy is a dual exercise in reading culture. First, the novel's actions focus on the cultural rite of female circumcision. Second, ...