The Monk of Mokha
A novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A gripping, triumphant adventure (Los Angeles Times) from the bestselling author of The Circle the incredible true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of...
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A gripping, triumphant adventure (Los Angeles Times) from the bestselling author of The Circle the incredible true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana a by civil war.Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen s central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country s rugged mountains and meet beleaguered but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.
Lese-Probe zu „The Monk of Mokha “
PROLOGUEMokhtar Alkhanshali and I agree to meet in Oakland. He has just returned from Yemen, having narrowly escaped with his life. An American citizen, Mokhtar was abandoned by his government and left to evade Saudi bombs and Houthi rebels. He had no means to leave the country. The airports had been destroyed and the roads out of the country were impassable. There were no evacuations planned, no assistance provided. The United States State Department had stranded thousands of Yemeni Americans, who were forced to devise their own means of fleeing a blitzkrieg tens of thousands of U.S.-made bombs dropped on Yemen by the Saudi air force.
I wait for Mokhtar (pronounced M KH-tar) outside Blue Bottle Coffee in Jack London Square. Elsewhere in the United States, there is a trial under way in Boston, where two young brothers have been charged with setting off a series of bombs during the Boston Marathon, killing nine and wounding hundreds. High above Oakland, a police helicopter hovers, monitoring a dockworkers strike going on at the Port of Oakland. This is 2015, fourteen years after 9/11, and seven years into the administration of President Barack Obama. As a nation we had progressed from the high paranoia of the Bush years; the active harassment of Muslim Americans had eased somewhat, but any crime perpetrated by any Muslim American fanned the flames of Islamophobia for another few months.
When Mokhtar arrives, he looks older and more self-possessed than the last time I d seen him. The man who gets out of the car this day is wearing khakis and a purple sweater-vest. His hair is short and gelled, and his goatee is neatly trimmed. He walks with a preternatural calm, his torso barely moving as his legs carry him across the street and to our table on the sidewalk. We shake hands, and on his right hand, I see that he wears a large silver ring, spiderwebbed with detailed markings, a great ruby-red stone set into it.
He ducks into Blue Bottle to say
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hello to friends working inside, and to bring me a cup of coffee from Ethiopia. He insists I wait till it cools to drink it. Coffee should not be enjoyed too hot, he says; it masks the flavor, and taste buds retreat from the heat. When we re finally settled and the coffee has cooled, he begins to tell his story of entrapment and liberation in Yemen, and of how he grew up in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco in many ways the city s most
troubled neighborhood how, while working as a doorman at a high-end apartment building downtown, he found his calling in coffee.
Mokhtar speaks quickly. He is very funny and deeply sincere, and illustrates his stories with photos he s taken on his smartphone. Sometimes he plays the music he listened to during a particular episode of his story. Sometimes he sighs. Sometimes he wonders at his existence, his good fortune, being a poor kid from the Tenderloin who now has found some significant success as a coffee importer. Sometimes he laughs, amazed that he is not dead, given he lived through a Saudi bombing of Sana a, and was held hostage by two different factions in Yemen after the country fell to civil war. But primarily he wants to talk about coffee. To show me pictures of coffee plants and coffee farmers. To talk about the history of coffee, the overlapping tales of adventure and derring-do that brought coffee to its current status as fuel for much of the world s productivity, and a seventy-billion-dollar global commodity. The only time he slows down is when he describes the worry he caused his friends and family when he was trapped in Yemen. His large eyes well up and he pauses, staring at the photos on his phone for a moment before he can compose himself and continue.
Now, as I finish this book, it s been three years since our meeting that day in Oakland. Before embarking on this project, I was a casu
troubled neighborhood how, while working as a doorman at a high-end apartment building downtown, he found his calling in coffee.
Mokhtar speaks quickly. He is very funny and deeply sincere, and illustrates his stories with photos he s taken on his smartphone. Sometimes he plays the music he listened to during a particular episode of his story. Sometimes he sighs. Sometimes he wonders at his existence, his good fortune, being a poor kid from the Tenderloin who now has found some significant success as a coffee importer. Sometimes he laughs, amazed that he is not dead, given he lived through a Saudi bombing of Sana a, and was held hostage by two different factions in Yemen after the country fell to civil war. But primarily he wants to talk about coffee. To show me pictures of coffee plants and coffee farmers. To talk about the history of coffee, the overlapping tales of adventure and derring-do that brought coffee to its current status as fuel for much of the world s productivity, and a seventy-billion-dollar global commodity. The only time he slows down is when he describes the worry he caused his friends and family when he was trapped in Yemen. His large eyes well up and he pauses, staring at the photos on his phone for a moment before he can compose himself and continue.
Now, as I finish this book, it s been three years since our meeting that day in Oakland. Before embarking on this project, I was a casu
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Autoren-Porträt von Dave Eggers
DAVE EGGERS is the author of many books, among them The Circle, The Eyes and the Impossible, The Monk of Mokha, A Hologram for the King, What Is the What, and The Museum of Rain. He is the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing and tutoring center which has inspired dozens of similar nonprofit organizations around the world, and the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publisher. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, and the American Book Award.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Dave Eggers
- 2019, 352 Seiten, Maße: 13 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: VINTAGE
- ISBN-10: 1101971444
- ISBN-13: 9781101971444
- Erscheinungsdatum: 04.01.2019
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Exquisitely interesting This is about the human capacity to dream here, there, everywhere. Gabriel Thompson, San Francisco ChronicleA cracking tale of intrigue and bravery A gripping, triumphant adventure story. Paul Constant, Los Angeles Times
"I wish someone had asked me to blurb The Monk of Mokha so I could have said, 'I couldn t put it down,' because I couldn t put it down." Ann Patchett, Parnassas Bookstore blog
A true account of a scrappy underdog, told in a lively, accessible style... Absolutely as gripping and cinematically dramatic as any fictional cliffhanger. Michael Lindgren, The Washington Post
Remarkable offers hope in the age of Trump Ends as a kind of breathless thriller as Mokhtar braves militia roadblocks, kidnappings and multiple mortal dangers. Tim Adams, The Guardian
A heady brew Plainspoken but gripping Dives deep into a crisis but delivers a jolt of uplift as well. Mark Athitakis, USA Today
"A vibrant depiction of courage and passion, interwoven with a detailed history of Yemeni coffee and a timely exploration of Muslim American identity." David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly
The Monk of Mokha is not merely about coming to America, it is a thrilling chronicle of one man s coming-and-going between two beloved homelands a brilliant mirror on the global community we have become. Marie Arana, author of American Chica and Bolivar: American Liberator
This American coming of age story reminds us all of how much our country is enriched by all who call it home. Dalia Mogahed, author of Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
Here s a story for our time: filled with ethos and pathos. You ll laugh, cry, and discover worlds unknown to most. From
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scamming in the Tenderloin to dodging bombs in Yemen, Mokhtar and Eggers take us on a worthwhile ride through the postmodern topography of our times. Hamza Hanson Yusuf
Like many great works, Eggers book is multifaceted. It combines, in a single moving narrative, history, politics, biography, psychology, adventure, drama, despair, hope, triumph and the irrepressible, indomitable nature of the human spirit at its best. Imam Zaid Shakir
In telling Mokhtar s story with such clarity, honesty, and humor, Eggers allows readers to consider Yemen and Yemenis long invisible, side-lined, or maligned in the American imagination in their wonderful and complicated fullness. Alia Malek, author of The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria and A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories
Like many great works, Eggers book is multifaceted. It combines, in a single moving narrative, history, politics, biography, psychology, adventure, drama, despair, hope, triumph and the irrepressible, indomitable nature of the human spirit at its best. Imam Zaid Shakir
In telling Mokhtar s story with such clarity, honesty, and humor, Eggers allows readers to consider Yemen and Yemenis long invisible, side-lined, or maligned in the American imagination in their wonderful and complicated fullness. Alia Malek, author of The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria and A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories
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