Tashi, an African woman married to an African-American missionary, struggles to deal with the psychological effects of the brutal circumcision she underwent in adolescence, which causes her son brain damage in birth and results in her facing a murder charge.
Tells the story of two African-American sisters: Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a child-wife living in the south, in the medium of their letters to each other and in Celie's case, the desperate letters she begins, "Dear God.".