This volume includes essays and meditations, (many of them previosuly unpublished) revisiting themes the author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist, and activist has addressed throughout her career, exploring her conflicting impulses to retreat into inner contemplation and to remain deeply engaged with the world: racism, Africa, solidarity with the Palestinian people, the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Cuba, health care, and the work of Aung San Suu Kyi.