The Monk of Mokha

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You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Mokhtar Alkhanshali, far right, makes coffee for farmers in Yemen, many of whom had never tasted their own beans brewed.

How Dave Eggers Lost His Way | The New Republic

Mokhtar grew up dirt poor......in San Francisco’s most impoverished districts: The Tenderloin District ( our older daughter once played the leading role in an indi film - at age 12 in this district- an area any mother would worry for her child) . Discuss the difference in atmosphere between Mokhtar’s first experience living in Yemen as a teenager and his travels there as an adult. How does his understanding of the country change as he matures? Discuss the effect of the civil war on Yemeni culture. How does Mokhtar navigate this environment? What advantages does he have as an American citizen? Fast forward five years, and today, at age 29, Alkhanshaliis importing prized Yemeni coffees through his company, Port of Mokha, andhis life is the subject of Dave Eggers’ new book, The Monk of Mokha.

I will start by saying: this book is very very different than The Circle. And, it is mostly a book for coffee lovers, because it has a fair share of talking about coffee in addition to a beautiful drive and entrepreneurship. The door buzzed. The writer was there, and we stood there, panting, laughing at this, the fact that this was really happening. But there was no nonalcoholic champagne or cider. There were no close friends, no family. It was just the two of us, and the ship was so close. Mokhtar was a creative semi- trouble maker - rascal- as a kid. He found solutions to some of his deprivations. AND WE ....THE READER....ARE ROOTING FOR HIM ALL THE WAY. He has an incredible ‘coming-of-age’ story to tell.

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers Book Club Discussion Questions: The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers

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. A real life, modern adventure story that is ripe for movie making. Mokhtar Alkhanshani rediscovers the Yemen coffee producing history and globally brings Yemen coffee to recognition and production. His dangerous journey reveals the beautiful but tumultuous setting of Yemen that has been subjected to uprisings, revolutions, invasion, kidnappings and bombings all within recent history. Mokhtar is an inspiration and a role model of ingenuity and hard work leading to great success. I read this book because it was written by Dave Eggers. I absolutely loved "Zeitoun". I liked "What Is The What" and "Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?" MA: What I went through with Dave was a very intimate road trip. Dave was incredibly warm and someone I felt comfortable being vulnerable with. Some of those memories were hilarious and others required lots of tissues. Dave’s caring and loving personality were what made this book possible because I know I wouldn’t have been able to do this with anyone else.

This is the best work by Dave Eggers that I’ve read to date. Really opened my eyes and makes me appreciate my multiple cups of coffee per day. I will never again complain about the price of my locally roasted fair-trade espresso beans. From the best-selling author of The Circle, 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.

The Story Behind Dave Eggers’ New Book, The Monk of Mokha The Story Behind Dave Eggers’ New Book, The Monk of Mokha

It's hard to articulate my thoughts on this book better than Michael Lindgren already has in the Washington Post, but what the hell I'll give it a shot - I liked the book, I don't regret reading it, but I won't recommend it to others, because after having read Eggers' fiction and memoir, I'm frankly disappointed.This is meant to be themoment in the book: climactic, epiphanic, cathartic. And yet, oddly enough, because the MSC Lucianais sailing in earlier than anticipated, the only person available to enjoy the sight with Mokhtar is “the guy writing a book about all this.” And so, just this once in the book, author, subject, and commodity come together, and in a manner far more revealing than it’s intended to be: Endlessly fascinating and engrossing read. It tells a story of the difficulties and dedication it takes to be a successful entrepreneur; it offers advice and inspiration to college students (or any person really) who is unsure about where their passions lie and what career path to pursue (spoiler: it's okay to fail a few times); it tells the rich history of the humble coffee bean. I was expecting this book to be fiction, but was nonplussed to find it is actually nonfiction and essentially a biography of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, who is now a successful entrepreneur and CEO of Port of Mokha coffee. Even a four dollar cup [of coffee] was miraculous, given how many people were involved… in that four dollar cup… even at four dollars a cup, chances were that some person-or many people, or hundreds of people-along the line were being taken, underpaid, exploited. MA: For most of my life I was terrified of small dogs so no, I don’t think of myself as a fearless person. People often ask how I managed living with violence and guns in Yemen. I grew up in Brooklyn and the Tenderloin [in San Francisco], the first time a gun was put in my face was here in the U.S when I was 11 years old. There are only two countries in the world that own more guns per capita than Yemen, and one of those is the US. In those instances that you mentioned of extreme danger in Yemen, I was able to not react but to respond and figure out what I needed to do to survive because I had already been equipped with that mechanism from an early age growing up in the inner-city in the US.