The Monk of Mokha: Dave Eggers

New
Paperback
2019
$12.27

From the best-selling author of The Circle - the gripping 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 becomes fascinated with the rich history of coffee and Yemen's central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral home to tour terraced farms high in the country's rugged mountains. He collects samples and organizes farmers and is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs the country. Saudi bombs rain down, the U.S. embassy closes, and Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen with only his hopes on his back. The Monk of Mokha is the story of this courageous and visionary young man following the most American of dreams. 'Extraordinary... No story is more urgent' Observer 'Dramatic, aspirational smartly and engagingly written... Exactly what I want to read right now' The Times 'The antidote to Trumpism... This is a book that celebrates [the] exuberance of the human spirit' Mail on Sunday 'This book... is about the American dream, and the threat that it is under' Spectator 'Remarkable... full of derring-do, tenacity and exceptional luck' Metro

Synopsis

From the best-selling author of The Circle - the gripping 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 becomes fascinated with the rich history of coffee and Yemen's central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral home to tour terraced farms high in the country's rugged mountains. He collects samples and organizes farmers and is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs the country. Saudi bombs rain down, the U.S. embassy closes, and Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen with only his hopes on his back. The Monk of Mokha is the story of this courageous and visionary young man following the most American of dreams. 'Extraordinary... No story is more urgent' Observer 'Dramatic, aspirational smartly and engagingly written... Exactly what I want to read right now' The Times 'The antidote to Trumpism... This is a book that celebrates [the] exuberance of the human spirit' Mail on Sunday 'This book... is about the American dream, and the threat that it is under' Spectator 'Remarkable... full of derring-do, tenacity and exceptional luck' Metro

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: 1
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 03 Jan 2019
ISBN 10: 0241975360
ISBN 13: 9780241975367
Book Overview: From San Francisco to Yemen, the gripping true story of a young American immigrant and his quest to resurrect the ancient art of Yemeni coffee - while escaping a terrifying civil war.

Media Reviews

Readers will never take coffee for granted or overlook the struggles of Yemen after ingesting Eggers's phenomenally well-written, juggernaut tale of an intrepid and irresistible entrepreneur on a complex and meaningful mission, a highly caffeinated adventure story * Booklist *
A most improbable and uplifting success story... Eggers offers an appealing hybrid: a biography of a charming, industrious Muslim man who has more ambition than direction; a capsule history of coffee and its origins, growth, and development as a mass commodity and then as a niche product; the story of Blue Bottle, the elite coffee chain in San Francisco that some suspect (and some fear) could turn into the next Starbucks; an adventure story of civil war in a foreign country... It is hard to resist the derring-do of the Horatio Alger of Yemenite coffee * Kirkus *
The remarkable true story of a Yemeni coffee farmer... A vibrant depiction of courage and passion, interwoven with a detailed history of Yemeni coffee and a timely exploration of Muslim American identity * Entertainment Weekly *
Works both as both a heart-warming success story with a winning central character and an account of real-life adventures that read with the vividness of fiction * Publishers Weekly *
It'll open your eyes - very wide - to the singular origins of your single origin * Esquire (UK) *
Definitely one for book club * Elle (UK) *
Eggers's narrative is guaranteed to be every bit as compelling as that of any novel * The Observer *
Dave Eggers returns to his factional mode with The Monk Of Mokha, in which a Yemeni immigrant to the US discovers an obsession with coffee, returns home, and is caught in a war. Given his previous form with What Is The What and Zeitoun I have high hopes of this book * The Scostman *
This is a book that celebrates ethnic diversity and the exuberance of the human spirit * Mail on Sunday *
[Dave Eggers] is on a mission to use the platform he has created as a writer/activist to give direct voice to the marginalised or unheard... No story is more urgent * Observer *
Bridgemakers such as Mokhtar courageously embody America's reason for being - as a place of radical opportunity and ceaseless welcome... a blended people united not by stasis and cowardice and fear, but by irrational exuberance, by global enterprise on a human scale * The Guardian *
It's hard to imagine ALkhanshali's story being told with more pace, scope or sensitivity. An extraordinary adventure * The Times *
Mokhtar's story is a remarkable one, full of derring-do, tenacity and exceptional luck * Metro *
It is impossible not to root for Mokhtar. And as with all good bildungsromans, it is as much the reader as the hero who receives an education * The Daily Telegraph *

Author Bio

Dave Eggers is the author of eleven books, including The Circle; Heroes of the Frontier; A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; and What is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France's Prix Medicis Etranger and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His non-fiction and journalism have appeared in the Guardian, the New Yorker, the Best American Travel Writing and the Best American Essays. Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney's, which publishes original fiction and non-fiction, and distributes the Voice of Witness series of books, which use oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. He is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centres with locations around the country, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his work has been translated into forty-two languages. He lives in Northern California with his family.