It tells the story of Tashi, an African woman and a minor character in Walker's earlier novel The Color Purple.

Now in the US she comes from the Olinka, (Alice Walker's fictional West African tribe) where female genital mutilation is practiced.

Tashi chooses to go back to the Olinka to undergo circumcison because she is a woman torn between two cultures, Olinkan and Western.

The novel delves into her struggles recuperating emotionally and physically from the circumcision as she is enveloped in revelations about the underlying meaning of her culture.

Adam Johnson – The son of Celie from The Color Purple, he is Tashi's lovingly supportive husband.

His intensely powerful insecurity and fear causes him to indulge in a merely comforting affair with his longtime friend, the French feminist, Lissete.