Whisper to My Aching Heart

In the novella WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, novelist Joseph R. Alila tells a story about two eighteenth-century Luo widows who battle against great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving-yet-romantic story, a young widow (Apiny) is the bearer of the damning spiritually untouchable label in the patriarchal African society. Ejected alongside her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) and ridiculed by friends, Apiny waits for fifteen years before she receives another man in her bed. Even then, her moment of triumph comes only after Awino remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin), who answers the call to marry Apiny and redeem his fallen brother’s honor. Even after getting all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters, she wished for from her youthful lover, Apiny is not at peace in her heart. She mourns and struggles, in her heart, as her youthful husband inevitably bows to Luo cultural demands and receives a virgin wife. In the novella WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, novelist Joseph R. Alila tells a story about two eighteenth-century Luo widows who battle against great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving-yet-romantic story, a young widow (Apiny) is the bearer of the damning spiritually untouchable label in the patriarchal African society. Ejected alongside her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) and ridiculed by friends, Apiny waits for fifteen years before she receives another man in her bed. Even then, her moment of triumph comes only after Awino remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin), who answers the call to marry Apiny and redeem his fallen brother’s honor. Even after getting all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters, she wished for from her youthful lover, Apiny is not at peace in her heart. She mourns and struggles, in her heart, as her youthful husband inevitably bows to Luo cultural demands and receives a virgin wife. http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

Author JR Alila

Author, Poet and Novelist Joseph R. Alila is a native of Kenya. JR Alila is a Chemist by training. JR Alila considers creative writing to be a natural consequence of the aging process. JR Alila has written extensively on his Luo people's marriage and other cultural practices, criticizing them where criticism is due, and shedding a sage's light so as to put meaning to old traditions. JR Alila's mournful caution against the practice of polygamy in the era of the AIDS virus comes in SUNSET ON POLYGAMY. JR has written extensively on pride, bigotry and prejudice in the spiritual/cultural novels, THE MILAYI CURSE, NOT ON MY SKIN, and SINS OF OUR HEARTS.
In his writings, JR treats each of his characters as "the total person"---a writing style that has made such works as WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, NOT ON MY SKIN, and THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, to be informative anthropological treatises on people and their physical, spiritual, political, cultural, and social circumstances.
When JR set out to write he had no voice or agenda. His objective was to tell stories about his Luo people and his experiences as a Christian, a Luo, an African, and a World Scholar uprooted from his home base to chase scientific dreams. But Eight Novels and two Epic Poems (RATENG' AND BRIDE and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA) later, he finds himself speaking increasingly for the burdened and voiceless African women and widows (in THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, and WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART) whose yokes are the marital culture and practices whose original intentions were protective, but now turned spiritual death traps from which there is no escape.
JR has found his political voice in RATENG' AND BRIDE (Kenya's 2007 Presidential contest), THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER (A historical-cum-spiritual fictional march of the Luo into the world's only citadel of power---inspired by Obama Presidency), and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA (An Epic Poem; theme: Africa is deluded with perilous crises, a lot of which are due to amnesia, poor leadership choices, greed, greedy friends and brother-on-brother conflicts, with Ebony the African Woman and her children bearing the brunt of their deadly consequences).
Eight novels and two epic poems later, in THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND and THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, JR Alila comes out as a sage's torch illuminating various aspects of the Luo journey, Luo cultural practices, Luo spirituality, and Luo thought.
Finally in the novel, NOT ON MY SKIN, JR Alila describes the American experience, consciousness and attitudes at street level, inside houses of worship and at the work place. This author has come of age.

These books are now available at Amazon AUTHOR CENTRAL, where this Author/Poet/Novelist from Nhiwa (Kenya) is proudly featured. This author has come of age, friends and fans.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER

I'll be signing copies of my new novel THE LUO DREAMERS ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power in Binghamton NY July 4th.

https://www.createspace/3373494

Obama Presidency: A Luo Prophecy

The emergence of President Barack Obama of the United States as a force in world politics, and as a voice in calling for unity in a world struggling with the role of religion in public life and international co-existence, has been discussed in as many a voice as there are religions in the world. His call for reason and understanding among world peoples (today, 6/4/2009, in Cairo, Egypt) comes at a time when in Palestine, Indonesia, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan religious purists are fighting to dominate their people’s political agenda.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=30052

President Obama is fighting what experts now agree to be a war for the people’s minds and souls, and he perhaps is the best man in the world for the role—having been brought up under a milieu of religious doctrines, lives with kin of different religions, and has been a victim (politically) of religious stigma and bigotry because of the words of his fellow faithful, and the religions of his kin.Is this man of peace, the same man about whom a rebel Catholic Priest, Johana Owalo of the Luo Nomiya Church phrophsied in 1912? Is President Obama the man who would destroy America in 2012 ? Were some meanings of Luo words and thought lost in the translation of Owalo’s Luo words?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=4h&oq=&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS324US324&q=luo+prophecies+and+obama+presidency

It can be argued that Owalo’s thought and choice of words were influenced by his rebel religious philosophy and the Luo independent streak that led him to break away from European Christianity to start his “Luonized Christian Church” known as Luo Nomiya Church (Luo I Was Given Church, which borrowed heavily from a monotheistic Luo religious tradition). Though under the yoke of British imperialism, which already had built a railway line connecting Kisumu and Mombasa, thus opening Kenya’s hinterland to a fast-spreading Christian Religion, it is curious that he prophesied of America as the land that would be destroyed by a Luo (which some people have claimed to be President Obama). Though Owalo's prophecy has been part realized close to 100 years later (a son of a Luo sits in the White House at this time as America’s 44th President)—the possibility that Obama would “destroy” the United States in 2012 may be far fetched, unless Owalo used the word ”to destroy” to mean to "fundamentally change" how America governs herself.

President Barack Hussein Obama is a transformational figure with an ambitious people-centered (read socialist by some) agenda. His governing agenda is ambitious, and he has a tongue that can sell water to the ocean. But the idea that he would destroy his American homeland is far fetched. His governance style will remain at the center because a Luo is known for the art of compromise, respect for peers, and worship of precedence. A Luo sticks to tradition (excuse my Luo Pride).

So when Father Owalo said that a Luo would “destroy America” in 2012, he perhaps had used the word “ketho” which can mean “to pollute” politically or socially, like a boy polluting the mind of a “virgin girl;” “disorganize,” as in “disorganizing an opponent’s military plan.”Rest easy folks, a Luo is in charge (Excuse Me!).

JR Alila

Author of THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY

(https://www.createspace.com/3373494). This novel is historical Fiction about the Luo, how they view the New President’s journey, and The Luo Prophecy on the emergence President Obama

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY

Six hundred years ago in the Sudan, Ajwang’s black ancestors were nomadic people needling the Nile, inching incrementally southward ahead of the encroachment of the Sahara against their livestock. Their flight south would be hastened by a new threat in a new religion, and complicated by internal family conflicts.Leading and guiding the flight south were men, who rose to the occasion and acted when the challenges of their times demanded courage, and challenged personal honor, common wisdom and established tradition. The mention of their names sent shivers down the spines of fellow men. Each would etch an indelible mark on their time, and leave permanent footprints for fellow men to follow.Leading in the odyssey out of the old Sudan was a dreamer, a nomad, a man of the wild, a man of rare wisdom named Ajwang’ or Ramogi. Ramogi (the wrestler) was a man guided by his dreams, a man of courage, who never blinked at danger, and the father of all Luo nations, from Sudan to Tanzania.Hassan Ajwang’ would live the dreams of his famous Luo ancestor. Though Hassan Ajwang’ was born to meager resources, he would be schooled in the Athenian Tradition, would volunteer in the service of the poor, but now mingles and dines with the rich of his time; a man for the times, who wields Spartan Power in his hands and debates doubters at the Citadel. His Luo people call him The Ajwang’. In their minds, he is the promise in their long and storied journey that dates back six centuries. They see in him their rendezvous with destiny, and a prophecy fulfilled, and not just a historical accident.There was a dream, and many dreamers.

JR Alila in “THE LUO DREAMERS ODYSSEY (A Novel), Coming June 2009

BOOK RELEASE

COMING SOON

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY:

from the Sudan to American Power

(A Novel)

By Joseph R. Alila

www.createspace.com