By the Light of My Father's Smile

By the Light of My Father's Smile is Alice Walker's

first novel in six years--a stunning, original, and important book by

"one of the best American writers of today" (The Washington Post).A

family from the United States goes to the remote Sierras in Mexico--the

writer-to-be, Susannah; her sister, Magdalena; her father and mother.

And there, amid an endangered band of mixed-race Blacks and Indians

called the Mundo, they begin an encounter that will change them more

than they could ever dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among

unforgettable characters and their stories, Walker crosses conventional

borders of all kinds as she explores in this magical novel the ways in

which a woman's denied sexuality leads to the loss of the much prized

and necessary original self; and how she regains that self, even as her

family's past of lies and love is transformed.By the Light of My Father's Smile is Alice Walker's

first novel in six years--a stunning, original, and important book by

"one of the best American writers of today" (The Washington Post).A

family from the United States goes to the remote Sierras in Mexico--the

writer-to-be, Susannah; her sister, Magdalena; her father and mother.

And there, amid an endangered band of mixed-race Blacks and Indians

called the Mundo, they begin an encounter that will change them more

than they could ever dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among

unforgettable characters and their stories, Walker crosses conventional

borders of all kinds as she explores in this magical novel the ways in

which a woman's denied sexuality leads to the loss of the much prized

and necessary original self; and how she regains that self, even as her

family's past of lies and love is transformed. By the Light of My Father's Smile

presents, as Alice Walker puts it, "a celebration of sexuality, its

absolute usefulness in the accessing of one's mature spirituality, and

the father's role in assuring joy or sorrow in this arena for his female

children." It explores the richness and coherence of alternative

culture, experience of sexuality as a celebration of life, of trust in

Nature and the Spirit, even as it affirms the belief, as Walker says,

"that it is the triumphant heart, not the conquered heart, that

forgives. And that love is both timeless and beyond time."