nIn this groundbreaking classic essay collection, Alice Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist on topics ranging from the personal to the political.n nOriginally published forty years ago, Alice Walkers first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that remains both timely and relevant. In these thirty-six essays, Walker contemplates her own work and that of other writers, considers the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, and writes vividly and courageously about a scarring childhood injury. Throughout, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the womanist tradition of black women--insights that are vital to understanding our lives and society today.n nWhen I graduated from college, my father gave me Alice Walkers In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. It was a beaten-up paperback in 1999, and its even more battered now. --Jesmyn Wardn n