Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Book Review: The Monk of Mokha (2018). Dave Eggers.

This is the incredible, inspiring true story of a young Yemeni-American who grew up as a poor immigrant child in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.  In the process of trying to find a way to make a living as a young man, without much early success, he discovers that his home country of Yemen was the original source of coffee. 

From this minor piece of historical trivia, he has a vision of himself as the man who can restore Yemeni coffee to international prominence, and then sets out to do it, despite his lack of any knowledge about coffee, or any business experience, connections or funding sources.  

In the process of this unlikely quest, he encounters one major obstacle after another:  poor coffee growing practices across Yemen, local warlords, terrorism and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the onset of the Yemeni war with Saudi Arabia, which unfolds and traps him in Yemen just as he's finally ready to ship his first load of elite coffee to America.  

An unusual rags to riches adventure story for our modern era.  Recommended.

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