Summary and Reviews of The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers

Media Reviews

Gabriel Thompson, San Francisco Chronicle Exquisitely interesting… This is about the human capacity to dream—here, there, everywhere.

Michael Lindgren, The Washington Post A true account of a scrappy underdog, told in a lively, accessible style… Absolutely as gripping and cinematically dramatic as any fictional cliffhanger.

Paul Constant, Los Angeles Times [E]very biography is a kind of love story between the author and their subject. And if Eggers leans a bit too heavily on the over-earnest mythologization of an American citizen with deep Yemeni roots during the disastrous Trump presidency, who — really — could blame him? Eggers is using his formidable literary powers and cachet to amplify the stories of victimized people in a moment of crisis — and he's doing so in the form of a gripping, triumphant adventure story. If more breakout literary sensations parlayed their celebrity into meaningful acts of citizenship, maybe kids like Alkhanshali wouldn't have to struggle quite so hard to find a place in the world.

Tim Adams, The Guardian Mokhtar’s tale, for which Eggers makes himself the conduit, starts out as a story of the frustration of second-generation immigrant assimilation and becomes an anecdotal history of coffee culture and practice. It ends as a kind of breathless thriller as Mokhtar braves militia roadblocks, kidnappings and multiple mortal dangers in order to get his first coffee samples to a producers’ conference in Seattle, the make or break for his business. In some senses, particularly at the outset, you wonder if this narrative would work best as a brilliant long-read magazine article. However, as it goes on, as Eggers explodes Mokhtar’s tale to book length, with all the detail that implies, you start to understand his wider purpose. He is anxious to put not only Mokhtar’s story on the page, but somehow Mokhtar himself, all his hopes, all his obstacles. Look at this extraordinary American, Eggers’s attention says. And more to the point, look at him at this particular moment; give him some proper time; no story is more urgent.

Kirkus Starred Review. Eggers gives his hero a lot of thematic baggage to carry, but it is hard to resist the derring-do of the Horatio Alger of Yemenite coffee.

Publishers Weekly Eggers's book works as both a heartwarming success story with a winning central character and an account of real-life adventures that read with the vividness of fiction.

Reader Reviews

Cathryn Conroy
A Breathless, Unexpected and Mesmerizing Journey About Coffee
It's a good thing this book is nonfiction. If it were a novel, no one would believe it! The author would be excoriated for creating an absurd and preposterous plot line and told to tone it down. A lot. But this isn't fiction. It really happened. ...   Read More

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