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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2018, 352 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2019, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Karen Lewis
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From the best-selling author of The Circle and What Is the What, a heart-pounding true story that weaves together the history of coffee, the struggles of everyday Yemenis living through civil war and the courageous journey of a young man - a Muslim and a U.S. citizen - following the most American of dreams.
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 chance encounter awakens his interest in coffee and its rich history in Yemen. Reinventing himself, he sets out to learn about coffee cultivation, roasting and importing.
He travels to Yemen and visits farms in every corner of the country, collecting samples, eager to improve cultivation methods and help Yemeni farmers bring their coffee back to its former glory. And he is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs Yemen in 2015. The U.S. embassy closes, Saudi bombs begin to rain down on the country and Mokhtar is trapped in Yemen.
Prologue
Mokhtar 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 MOKH-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 ...
Dave Eggers is an engaging storyteller with a flair for dramatic moments, and his biography of Yemeni American entrepreneur Mokhtar Alkhanshali combines a well-paced series of heroic misadventures with fascinating coffee facts. The narrative spans continents, cultures and centuries to explore the history of coffee and to describe current events in Yemen. Mokhtar is characterized as a complex, modern Sinbad the Sailor, venturing far to make his rags-to-riches dream come true...continued
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(Reviewed by Karen Lewis).
In The Monk of Mokha, there's a scene in which Mokhtar is assigned to be a translator for visiting Yemeni Tawakkol Karman, who is guest lecturing at UC Berkeley Law School. Tawakkol is the first Yemeni woman, in fact the first Arab woman, ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was honored for her nonviolent activism during the Arab Spring (known in Yemen as the Jasmine Revolution). She won the prize in 2011, sharing it with two other women: Liberia's president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Mrs. Leymah Gbowee, credited with leading the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, ending a long civil war there.
Tawakkol Karman was born in 1979. She studied at the University of Sana'a (Yemen's capital city), became a journalist, and...
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