Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women [Paperback]

Alice Walker (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest Book | Publication Date: February 28, 1996

Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar expose the secret of female genital mutilation, a practice that affects one hundred million of the world’s women. New Introductions by the Authors.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Female genital mutilation is still widely practiced in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Walker, whose 1992 novel Possessing the Secret of Joy explored the life of a genitally mutilated African woman, teamed up with Indian filmmaker Parmar (who was born in Kenya and is based in London) to make a documentary film about this abhorrent practice. This forceful account of how they filmed Warrior Marks in Africa in 1992-93 splices letters, journal entries, photographs, poems and interviews with victims of "female circumcision," their families, women who perform clitoridectomies and activists opposed to the practice. Included is medical testimony suggesting that female genital mutilation may contribute to the spead of AIDS. This remarkable cross-cultural collaboration should help to break the deafening silence surrounding a taboo subject.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Female genital mutilation is still widely practiced in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Walker, whose 1992 novel Possessing the Secret of Joy explored the life of a genitally mutilated African woman, teamed up with Indian filmmaker Parmar (who was born in Kenya and is based in London) to make a documentary film about this abhorrent practice. This forceful account of how they filmed Warrior Marks in Africa in 1992-93 splices letters, journal entries, photographs, poems and interviews with victims of female circumcision, their families, women who perform clitoridectomies and activists opposed to the practice. Included is medical testimony suggesting that female genital mutilation may contribute to the spread of AIDS. This remarkable cross-cultural collaboration should help to break the deafening silence surrounding a taboo subject. --Publishers Weekly --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (February 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156002140
• ISBN-13: 978-0156002141
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,405,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Walker is one of the most prolific writers of our time, known for her literary fiction, including the Pultizer Prize-winning The Color Purple, her many volumes of poetry, and her powerful nonfiction collections. Walker's most recent book is The Chicken Chronicles, a memoir. Her advocacy for the dispossessed has spanned the globe. She lives in Northern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! Everyone should read this book, June 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women (Hardcover)

An incredibly intense book. It is not for the easily frightened. The modern-day atrocities detailed in this book overshadow anything Steven King might think up. YOU WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THIS BOOK. I based my senior thesis on Walker's works, and Warrior Marks opens a window into her soul. I would recommend this book to all men and women, especially those who think the modern world is devoid of barbaric cruelty.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Takes you out of your comfort zone, January 3, 2003

By 

Skyy Sutton "skyy777" (Fairfax VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women (Paperback)

I first became aware of female genital mutilation (FGM) when reading "The Color Purple," and again when reading Fausiya Kassindja's "Do They Hear You When You Cry." These two books led me to read "Warrior Marks." Female genital mutilation is a crime, an outrage, a sin before God. How dare the originators of this heinous procedure presume that what God created is faulty or a mistake? "Warrior Marks" enhanced what I had already learned about FGM. Any man (or woman) who tries to uphold this procedure as something that benefits girls and women is of a criminal mind. There is no benefit to putting a woman through this torture. If men were required to experience a similar experience, we would soon see the end of FGM. Please read this book if you seek another point of view. The addition of Alice Walker's poetry and the sharing of her experiences as she and Pratibha Parmar traveled through Africa is an eye-opener, and the way the book is written gives the reader a personal view in the same way that Ms. Kassindja's book does. Ms. Walker gives the women that she writes about a certain dignity, and while the reader may not be able to identify with the physical pain, some of the emotions may be felt. This is definitely a 5-star book.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We African women need MORE books like this!!, October 20, 2004

By 

Kola Boof (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women (Paperback)

I am Kola Boof, often and truthfully billed as the nation of Sudan's top woman writer. I am also a woman who is "vaginally circumcised"--mutilated, if you will. In fact, Sudan is Africa's leading nation for "FMG" as Americans call it.

"Warrior Marks" is a superior work by a superior woman.

While so many reviewers here have claimed that there are BETTER books on this subject than Walker's "Warrior Marks"....I would remind them that with so very little written about this subject in the first place--we need to read and value EVERYTHING that is offered on the subject, especially when offered by a Black Woman (Alice Walker) whose obvious love, care and respect for African women...seeps like a healing oil from every page.

It's no secret that Alice Walker is one of the great inspirations of my own literary career and much of my work as an African woman from the Nilotic peoples of Sudan is distilled through the prism of her own American voice---as I struggled to find a way to tell my own stories with as much truth and bareness as possible.

"Warrior Marks" is a tribute to the WORTHINESS of African women...a book that gives us permission to embrace our sexuality, to value our black bodies and to insist that those bodies be healed. It also gives us the chance for "forgiveness". And through Alice Walker's willingness to lay bare her own personal reactions and observations and "empathies"....a larger story of womanhood is revealed and committed to word.

GOD bless both Alice and Pratibah, for such COURAGE.