The Monk of Mokha - Hardcover

Eggers, Dave

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0735274495 ISBN 13: 9780735274495

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2018

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Circle and What Is the What, the 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 grew up in San Francisco, one of seven siblings brought up by Yemeni immigrants in a tiny apartment. At age twenty-four, unable to pay for college, he works as a doorman, until a statue of an Arab raising a cup of coffee awakens something in him. He sets out to learn the rich history of coffee in Yemen and the complex art of tasting and identifying varietals. He travels to Yemen and visits countless farms, collecting samples, eager to bring improved cultivation methods to the countryside. And he is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs Yemen in 2015. The US Embassy closes, Saudi bombs began to rain down on the country, and Mokhtar is trapped in Yemen. Desperate to escape, he embarks on a passage that has him negotiating with dueling political factions and twice kidnapped at gunpoint. With no other options, he hires a skiff to take him, and his coffee samples, across the Red Sea. A heart-pounding true story that weaves together the history of coffee, the ongoing Yemeni civil war, and the courageous journey of a young man--a Muslim and a US citizen--following the most American of dreams.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2018: The Monk of Mokha is an unblinking, open account of a San Francisco-based Yemeni American’s success story. The sincerity and subject matter will make some cynics uneasy, and cynics would do well to avoid this book, or be less cynical. Following in the path of What is the What and Zeitoun, Eggers delivers us the real-life tale of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Muslim in his early twenties who appears to be on his way to a relatively undistinguished life. But when he discovers the historic Yemeni connection to coffee production, he embarks on a quest that will change his path and provide direction. The adventure itself is riveting, but when you add in the history of coffee, the story becomes even more elevated. Mokhtar is an inspirational character, and Dave Eggers has written an entertaining, inspirational, and informative book. -- Chris Schluep for the Amazon Book Review

About the Author

Dave Eggers grew up near Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeney’s publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. In 2002, he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit youth writing and tutoring center in San Francisco’s Mission District. Sister centers have since opened in seven other American cities under the umbrella of 826 National, and like-minded centers have opened in Dublin, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Birmingham, Alabama, among other locations. Eggers's work has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, France’s Prix Médicis, Germany’s Albatross Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the American Book Award. Eggers lives in Northern California with his family. His novels include The Circle, A Hologram for the King, and Heroes of the Frontier.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0735274495
• ISBN 13: 9780735274495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368