In her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walker speaks out as a black woman, writer, mother, and feminist, in thirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Here are essays about Walker's own work and that of other writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the 1980s, and a vivid, courageous memoir of a scarring childhood injury. Throughout the volume, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminists and feminism, incorporating what she calls the "womanist" tradition of black women. 
"This is one of the healthiest collections of essays I have come across in a long time. . . . What [Walker] says about the black woman she says from the depths of oppression. What is said from the depths of oppression illuminates all other oppressions."-New Statesman 
Alice Walker is the author of seven novels, three collections of short stories, three collections of essays, seven volumes of poetry, and several children's books. Her novel The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and her work has been translated into more than two dozen languages. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker lives in northern California.