I'm author Joseph R. Alila, a native of Kenya living in Schenectady, New York, from where I have penned twelve novels and two epic poems. You may not have read my poetry and verse that address a variety of areas of the human experience, but you are welcome if you love writings that go beyond the mundane of daily life. I'm a chemist and teacher by training, and I for a while considered my writing as something recreational, something I did to pass time. Fourteen publications later, learning the art of writing on my feet, the literary burg has bitten me, and friends and fans say that I'm a good novelist with particular strengths in the narrative and analytical forms and with a penchant for stinging dialogue. I laugh at such suggestions, but they may be right; it may be true that writing is like wine: the author's output gets better with his or her age, where the wine in a bottle gets better with time in the cellar. I started writing from what I knew well, and that was telling stories about life in a traditional Luo home--in which I grew up before I flew to multiethnic, then multinational diaspora destinations. I've written extensively on my Luo people's polygamous marriages and other cultural practices, criticizing them where criticism is due, and shedding a sage's light in an effort to put meaning to old traditions. My mournful caution against the practice of polygamy in the era of the AIDS virus came to light in SUNSET ON POLYGAMY. My writings have tended to be anthropological--treating my subjects as actors or victims of their environments and times. My novels, WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, NOT ON MY SKIN, MAYA, BIRTHRIGHT (A LUO TRAGEDY), THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, and lately MAYA are informative anthropological treatises on peoples and their physical, spiritual, political, cultural, and social circumstances. I must admit that when I set out to write my earlier novels, for example SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, I had no voice or agenda. My objective was to tell stories about my Luo people and my experiences as a Christian, a Luo, an African, and a world scholar uprooted from his home base to chase scientific dreams abroad. But fourteen novels and two Epic Poems (RATENG' AND BRIDE and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA) later, I find himself increasingly speaking for the burdened and voiceless peoples wherever they are in the world: I speak for the African women and widows (in THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, and WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART) whose perilous yokes are the marital culture and practices whose original intentions were protective, but which cultural practices now have turned spiritual death traps, from which there is no escape. I've found a mournful political voice in two of my works:In RATENG' AND BRIDE, I visit with and relive, in poetry, Kenya's tragic 2007 Presidential contest, pointing at errors from which the nation hasn't recovered). In the epic poem, THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA, my message is that increasingly dependent Africa is an old shadow of its pre-colonial self; Africa is inundated with perilous crises, a lot of which are due to amnesia, nature, poor leadership choices, greed, dictatorships, and brother-on-brother conflicts, with Ebony the African Woman and her children bearing the brunt of the deadly forces. In THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER--a novel inspired by and about the Obama Presidency--I endeavor to make a tortuous historical-cum-spiritual fictional march of my Luo people from their slow fifteenth-century times in Old Sudan to East Africa, only for one of us to occupy the world's only citadel of power. If some of my predictions about the current American Presidency seem to have come to pass, they have to be taken as illustrations of what thoughtful fiction (science or otherwise) can achieve. Collectively, in the novels, THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, and BIRTHRIGHT (A LUO TRAGEDY), I shed a sage's torch, liberally illuminating various aspects of the Luo journey, Luo cultural practices, Luo spirituality, and Luo thought. No wonder, my literary breakthrough novel BIRTHRIGHT (A LUO TRAGEDY) has been a classroom text in African Anthropology at an American University. Finally, the novels, NOT ON MY SKIN, THE AMERICAN POLYGAMIST, SINS OF OUR HEARTS, THE CHOIRMASTER (A SPIRITUAL TRAGEDY), and MAYA, I explore our day's very dynamic American experience, consciousness, and attitudes at street level, inside houses of worship, and at the work place. My readers could be right, my literary journey no longer is recreational; like aged wine, it has come of age. Welcome, sample it, and however it tastes, let others know, and holler here on amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

Maya (A Novel)

MAYA, Joseph R Alila, author of “Birthright (a Luo Tragedy),” (http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM) brings yet another narrative about the lives of ordinary people with human flaws, from which each of them can only run away, or ignore, at his or her own peril. Maya Boone faces a legal quandary over a death she has witnessed from her hideout on Eagle Street, Harmony, New York. First, she watches Raul, the troublesome husband from whom she is hiding, kill a bulldog. When Maya crosses Eagle Street to enquire whether the dog’s owner (Mike) is suing Raul, she instead falls in love with the heartbroken man, lures him to her bed, and even contemplates witnessing against Raul. The brief affair ends quickly because Mike becomes a victim to an enraged boyfriend’s arrow of passion. Wounded and helpless, Mike falls into the hands of a moonlighting evangelist named Booker who has a score to settle with him. There is no mercy for Mike, only a slow death, because Booker wishes to maintain his cover while moonlighting at Bar Delirium. With Mike dead, Maya’s distant past soon confronts her because, also witnessing the events leading to the murder on Eagle Street is Officer Jimmy Depuy—a child Maya abandoned at birth forty years before. Neither Raul nor Maya nor Officer Depuy knows about their shared bond. Then one Detective John unearths the blood knot linking Jimmy Depuy to the Rauls, and soon District Attorney Hess is advancing criminal motives against the trio. In MAYA, JR Alila weaves yet another intricate narrative that should appeal to those readers who seek to understand, in human character, matters beyond the mundane of daily life. Check here: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

The American Polygamist

When Chief Chuki gets entangled in a business deal with rival Goldian Army Generals, he finds himself held hostage in a land in which he is revered. Yet even with his proximity to the wheels of power on both sides of the pond, he cannot shout for help because of the desire to keep his good name. Second, his Goldian wife has delivered a son and uses the unique circumstances of his captivity to demand part of his wealth in exchange for his freedom and her silence over his marital status.

Now, a desire for secrecy demands that Chuki engages the expertise of a fellow Iraqi War I Veteran and his high-tech buddies, who have created a lucrative business niche negotiating the release of Western hostages from the high-risk world of African warlords, terrorists, and sea pirates.

In THE AMERICAN POLYGAMIST (ISBN-13: 144992798-1) , J.R. Alila weaves a story with many twists and turns as family betrays family, honor is traded for wealth and an honorable man becomes a prisoner of his own secrets.

Enter Chuki’s American wife, Patty, who suspects that he has at least one African wife and child in Africa. Mrs. Patty Chuki is ready to revisit old Brooklyn-High-School romance with a Major Frank to get to the truth while in a Harvard reunion with her billionaire husband in the Masai Mara. But will Admiral Ndeki of Goldian Navy let Patty taste the forbidden fruit in peace in Nairobi?

COMING SOON at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

www.createspace.com/3413870

BOOK RELEASE: THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (From the Sudan to American Power) is now available for purchase from https://www.createspace.com/3373494 . Availability on www.amazon.com comes shortly. Students of Luo Oral History, Luo Anthropology, Luo Religiosity, Luo Leadership and Hidden Prophecies, Luo wisdom, Current American politics with a little salt added for taste, and those attracted to Luo ways because of our current notoriety on the world stage (Haven't we father the guardian of the citadel of world power?), or if you just want to discover what makes the Luo tick, this is your Historical Novel (where facts, fantasies, fiction are mixed, cooked then served as tragedy, satire, comedy or paranormal events). I say welcome to all of you.You are looking for romance? You won't be bored. You love tension? Tighten your seat-belt. You love heroes? They are here. You are a tough girl? Meet your friends here. You think you know about the "Luo Bead of Passion?" You ain't met it yet. Have you heard about "The Ajwang' Prophecy?" Definitely not. Have you read about "Sunrise from the West?" Most likely not. Have you heard of "The Ajwang' Mark of Leadership?" or Do you have it under a specific foot (be sure to be a Luo, must have a fifth of Luo blood)? I doubt that you have. Can you write a short essay about "The Great Schism" among the Luo clans that dispersed this great nation throughout East and Central Africa, from Sudan to Tanzania? Maybe not.Grab your copy

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