The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers 4/5 Summary 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 duelling 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. My review Yemen is not doing too well right now. Actually, it is doing awful. Outbreaks of cholera, drone strikes, Saudi-strikes… According to UNICEF, one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable diseases due to the lack of access to water and vaccination. Last month, Yemen entered the fourth year of its civil war with no signs of progress. I am no expert on the conflict, I only learned about it last summer when I met for the first time my dear friend AJJ. He is a Yemeni immigrant who fled the war a couple years ago. I promised myself I would try to learn as much as possible about the land he calls home, a land he said is fertile, ancient (dating back to 1200 BC with the Kingdom of Sheba) and rich during the spice trade. Now, it is hard to imagine how a Middle-Eastern country like Yemen could be “fertile” (isn't it all just desert over there?), but Mokhtar Alkhanshali would absolutely disagree with you. He is the real-life person behind the exportation of Yemeni coffee throughout the world. Yemen is beautiful and environmentally diverse country with mountains, vast coastal plains, highlands perfect for agriculture, and, yes, desert. On a random note, if you want to feel like you're on the Moon, go on Google Earth and check out the island of Socotra. It is a place to see before you die I believe. Back to business, why should you care about Yemeni coffee? You probably don't, but you are sure to be interested in Mokhtar’s incredible story. He is the personification of the American dream. It doesn’t matter if you drink coffee or not, if you are a casual drinker or a passionate barista, everyone can be astounded by the force of will of an individual who came from nothing and made something beautiful out of their life. Alkhanshali will make you care about coffee because you see how it impacts the lives of everyone who touches it, from the grower to the picker to the person driving the boat or the plane across the Atlantic to bring it to a San Franciscan shop. You look at coffee less like an everyday commodity, but like a food that requires as much preparation and care as a 3-Michelin star meal. The Monk of Mokha truly changed the way I see Yemen and the way I see coffee. While I am certainly not an expert, there seems to be a lot of wasted potential within Yemen for growth and development. I like to think that it is by bringing together the Developed world in small-scale projects like the development of a coffee exchange market in Developing countries, we can truly win on all fronts. Economic stability means less war and more human-rights conscious profit in the long term for the local and international economy. Alkhanshali's story definitely highlights the benefits of such partnerships and overturns the classic misconception that immigrants are not profitable members of society. When given the right tools and the opportunities, they can flourish and bring new, creative businesses. As Eggers puts it, they are "bridging the gaps" between Developed and Developing Nations. Smooth Segway into Eggers' writing style. I wanted to love it. Mokhtar's story is just so powerful that I felt there needed to be an equally powerful voice telling his story, but it was not the case. This comes as a surprise since Eggers has earned much praise for his previous works, but I felt there were some stylistic choices that were simply out of place. Eggers was repetitive, especially when he delivered background information about the war or the history of coffee. He would take a piece of information, present it, a represent it in more details a couple pages after. It made the book heavier than it needed to be and I’m not just talking about the physical weight. There were also some important points that I felt were left out or badly presented. Without spoiling much, there were times where I just wondered how in the world he got the money to do X or Y project or how he handled the tribal disputes. There was maybe too much elaboration on his childhood (around 30% of the book) which was interesting but without much character growth, and not enough on his work in Yemen or once he got the beans in America. Maybe the repetitive structure or omissions like these are typical in the structure of a biography, I have not read many, but at the end, it felt just a little too impersonal. I wonder what it would have been if Alkhanshali had written it himself. If you liked The Monk of Mokha, you will love… What Happened by Hillary Clinton The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé P.s.: This is the prettiest book cover you will ever encounter in your life. The photo does not do it justice.
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