On the novel "The Wise One of Ramogiland" one TKM says, "I loved the story because it enlightened me regarding seers, African Seers, to be exact. I would recommend it for all, especially for those that want to know more about those wise illiterate old folks who are totally misunderstood as to what they do, know, and can do: chiefly they're therapists, teachers, and counselors; occasionally, they're complimentary and/or alternative healers. These overseers offer hope, counsel, admonishment, and even a resting shoulder for the all including the distressed, disenfranchised, oppressors, and criminals. They're to the their people what priests, psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, et al are to the modern western citizen. I have a new understanding that I probably would never have had, perhaps for ever, if I had not read this piece of work. The author did not expound well on wife inheritance, and tero buru which would made the book even more informative. Five stars if the author would expound on that." (By TKM). Here is a link to the review of "The Wise One of Ramogiland"

Reading is Life

It is summer, and we all should be picking up some book to read. Reading is life; get a book and start reading.

Author Joseph R. Alila’s Literary Publications

THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA [ISBN-13-978 480277380]: JR Alila’s epic poem, THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA, highlights the cycle of maladies that continue to afflict the African continent decades after independence. The poet moans and groans for the longsuffering African woman, who continues to face the horrors of war (over cheap honor, land, oil and gems) and its victims in child soldiers; the poet mourns for the African woman, who continues to contend with the cultural consequences of killer AIDS and its surviving victims in child mothers. The poet reminds the reader that Africa still suffers in the anvil of her corrupt dictators who drink imported waters, while she roils in the curses of poverty and famine amid wealth in “black gold” (oil) and gems—a wealth that has brought nothing but the miseries of war and death to her. Mother Africa faces the new curse in globalization and free trade that has added fuel into the raging fire of corruption as her alien suitors jostle for attention. But because of globalization, Mother Africa has to live with her unreliable alien lovers, whose sugary ways have lured her children into a no-return journey into an ever-expanding diaspora—leaving her destitute and defenseless. Africa is under a continent-wide curse, so says the poet. The poet asks: In a continent where the cell phone is everywhere, why are there no passable roads and clean water? In this era of a virtual economy, why is Africa still bartering her cocoa, coffee, diamonds, and tea for cell phones in the name of free trade and globalization? It is the poet’s contention that most of Africa’s problems arise from the loss of the sense of “Africanness,”—loss of self-worth—and the greatest victim is the inept African man and the continent-wide body he dominates known as African Union.

NOT ON MY SKIN [ISBN-13:978143825527-9].In JR Alila's NOT ON MY SKIN, the all-American Harmony City is not exactly harmonious. Individualism, prejudice and arm's length neighborliness greet Ochome--a poet and suburbanite, who has staked out his evenings in the city's downtown cafe. Harmony City's peace hardly is skin deep. There is a daily stalemate at the fertility clinic, and wherever Ochome turns, he sees, hears, and constantly feels souls cursing "Not on My Skin"-- a protest mantra against nuances of prejudice he sees, hears and feels in the city café and beyond. The Café crowd has a few regulars who, like most urban neighbors, remain verbally unengaged individuals. But the sense of peace is often compromised by one Alex, a man considered a mad nuisance by all, but who, in reality, is the only mirror in which Harmony City perhaps can see herself. Alex is the lone gong off which the city can hear herself, the same way a child's innocent words are the real measure of the moral quality of life in a home.

A view from the urban frontline of American life. A good read for those with the courage enough to look at the mirror of life and confront individualism.

MAYA [ISBN13:9781470068677]:In MAYA, Joseph R Alila, author of “Birthright (a Luo Tragedy),” 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 inquire 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.

A not-so-glorious past catches up with Maya and Raul, both urbanites, when Maya's neighbor is murdered. Good detective work threatens to flip Maya from witness to suspect.

Maya (Pitch)

Harmony City suddenly is disharmonious, catching her administrators on unsure footings. Hard economic times have dumped the old and young into Main Street. Police officers have their hands full fighting members of the Occupy Harmony Movement (OHM)—an amorphous group funded by grumpy rich men, with scores to settle against Wall Street.

Amid the OHM-engineered chaos, Officer Depuy suddenly has a personal battle to fight: he is a witness in the killing of one Mike—a man with a dubious sex life—and his dog. Then history suddenly springs a surprise—a nosey police detective discovers a blood knot that tethers Officer Depuy to two dysfunctional wealthy people of interest in the murder, but who don’t even know that he is their son.

A runaway woman, Maya Boone, has watched Raul, her troublesome husband, kill Mike’s dog. When she crosses Eagle Street to spy on Mike’s intentions against Raul, she meets a heartbroken man. They mourn together, before her empathy quickly turns into intimacy and shared lust. But tragedy befalls Mike on his return home—he encounters an enraged boyfriend’s fatal arrow of passion.

Even as District Attorney Hess has two self-confessed killers behind bars, she still is advancing criminal motives against Maya, Raul, and Officer Jimmy Depuy—a child Maya gave away at birth. Maya and Raul run to Florida, where she intends to nurse her late-life pregnancy, of controversial origin, in private. She leaves a Judge Lit and attorneys debating the merits of a full murder trial.

In MAYA, the author weaves through a modern city’s cultural fabric, gently touching every social issue of the day, to present a narrative that is steps ahead of its time. Maya should appeal to readers who seek to understand in human character matters beyond the mundane of daily life.

THE MILAYI CURSE [ISBN 13: 978-145281882-5]: In The Milayi Curse, Joseph R. Alila (the Author of "Sunset on Polygamy") tells a story about one early Christian Priest's struggles to make sense of an alien culture, fight myths and curses, and reconcile Jokamilayi-a fictional Luo (Kenyan) clan. It is a tale about spirituality, honor, betrayal, pride and wealth and uneasy kinship, as Christianity and formal education break class barriers, burst myths and "turn things upside down." Charles Milayi, a poor orphan, graduates out of middle school with excellent grades. Just when his mother has lost hope of her gifted son ever stepping into a high school, he becomes a beneficiary of "a secret hand of providence" only known to Father James O'Kilghor. Charles excels in his studies, joins college, and becomes a lawyer and a cabinet minister. He breaks through class barrier and marries none other than the Prime Minister's daughter. But Hon. Milayi's people remain bitterly divided along bloodlines because of a century-old curse with origins in old wars, pillage of war soils, and ancestral wealth. The endless cold war among ancestral cousins has made Father James O'Kilghor's ministry to the Jokamilayi a trying experience, even for a man known for his controversial "Africanized" evangelizing strategies, in which active traditional priests and witch doctors are baptized before they even renounce their trades.

An old conflict between two brothers has returned to haunt their grandchildren in the new age, in which Christian Priests minister among a people struggling to walk away from their African religious past. Will Father James resolve the age-old conflict without losing a part of his soul?

THE AMERICAN POLYGAMIST [ISBN-13: 978144992798]: Billionaire American businessman Chief Chuki is a notable within the American high society and a venerable name in the African nation of Goldia, where he holds the highest honorary title of Chief among his Oyi people. 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, 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 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 Maasai Mara. But will Admiral Ndeki of Goldian Navy let Patty taste the forbidden fruit in peace under Nairobi's sunny skies?

Held hostage among his African people, this American Billionaire walks a delicate balance as he negotiates a path to freedom without hurting the feelings of his African bride, while still keeping his marital status secret back in America. Will Chuki walk free unscathed?

RATENG’ AND BRIDE [ISBN-13: 978-1438251097]: In the epic poem, "RATENG' AND BRIDE," Joseph R Alila (Author of such novels as "Whisper to My Aching Heart" and “Sunset on Polygamy") pleads with the hero (Rateng') to abandon a lifelong ambition of reigning in a killer, illusive Bride, and redeeming his honor and Ramogi people's collective pride. Of Rateng's illusive Bride—call her Power, Leadership or The Presidency—Alila reminds his hero of her corrupting, material allures and deadly charms. Like a gem, a Powerful Presidency corrupts everybody it touches, and its corrupting effects linger like the nauseating smell of a scared skunk. Employing rich imagery and proverbs, and never shy to go Luo vernacular with proverbs, in "RATENG' AND BRIDE," Alila has played his satirical hand, again, and demonstrated his knowledge of the political landscape of Kenya.

The epic poem captures the peril that was 2007 Kenyan electoral conflict. Will the nation survive the tribal monster?

THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW [ISBN-13: 978-144951231-6]:In Joseph R. Alila's THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW, a one-sided war between two boys (Omolo and Okoth) in middle school turns tragic in their middle age as Chief Omolo's secret acts not only drive Tom Okoth to his grave, but also unleash a viral plague that consumes a whole village and beyond. When Charles Okoth (Tom's elder brother) returns to his desolate Korondo village to redeem Tom's honor, he betroths Maria, one of Tom's many widows, who leads him to the haunting contents of a secret diary, in which Tom paints himself as an inexcusable victim of Chief Omolo's evil schemes. The diary further paints Tom as a gullible tragic individual, who falls from the headship of a prestigious local school to being an alcoholic womanizer and widower-for-hire on a predictable path to his death. But Charles Okoth's procreative efforts with the widows soon attract the ire of Chief Omolo's office. Only the diary can stop Chief Omolo's mean-spirited schemes.

A novel about tragic men and their personal vendetta in a world in which tough women rule the day. Another tough read from JR Alila.

SINS OF OUR HEARTS [ISBN-13: 978-143820013-2]]: A young Pastor, Rew Smith, leads the affluent Oakpound New Hope Church in which things appear to be well, but his church has a deep spiritual problem. His church suffers from a shortage of love; new converts are called names and go unattended to as the young Pastor spends most of his evenings at Oakpound Big Boys Health and Fitness Club. His Lay Leadership basks in self-praise, and a form of spirituality without any force of love behind it. Led by Mrs. Smith, some members of the Women Wing have introduced a controversial Foot-Washing method for its convenience, but in which the virtues of humility and selfless love are virtually dead.

Spirituality and leadership on trial in a congregation as believers struggle with sin of pride over foot-washing ordinance.

WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART [ISBN-13: 978-143820751-3]:WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART is a story about two widows overcoming great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving-yet-romantic, love story, a young widow (Apiny) finds herself to be the bearer of the damning, spiritually-untouchable label in the male-dominated Eighteenth-Century Africa. 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. But this comes only after Awino remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin) who is called upon to marry Apiny. But, 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 is compelled by cultural traditions to receive his own wife.

A people's future is in the hands of two unfortunate widows. Will they survive the male world of the eighteenth century and mother a people? A book for the heart.

THE CHOIRMASTER [ISBN-13: 978-144954199-6]:In Mud Valley Church, the evangelizing wonders of the Church Choir have become both a blessing and a minor headache, as the growth in card-carrying membership and church attendance explode overnight. That is the blessing. The headache is the charismatic but unassuming Choirmaster whose gifts are key to the phenomenal growth. As the women-folk with available daughters fight to outdo one another in monthly dinners for the Choirmaster, things become a little earthly. But even after Michael is finally crowned with the urgency of Samuel the prophet, his outreach ministry becomes a bother to the Church Board, whose membership are left wondering, "What if the Choirmaster leaves?" when the Treasurer reveals that the Choir is funding most of Mud Valley Church's Budget.

A community of faith on trial. Teaches that cult figures never can nurture a community of faith.

THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER [ISBN-13: 978-144148311-9]:In the historical novel, THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power, a journey that started more than five centuries ago in the Sudan, has ended in the White House . Along the way, a child and a troubled dreamer, Ajwang' the Dreamer (a.k.a. Ramogi) survives the knife of ire of a man robbed of his bead of wisdom. The sons of Ajwang' must part ways with a child dead between them because of vengeance over a bead and a spear. Centuries later, an orphan must "develop wings," fly out of Colonial Kenya to Alaska, and plant his seed, a boy, and dreamer, named Hassan Ajwang'. This boy lives to be the President of the United States of America. In the historical-fiction novel, author Joseph R. Alila pens yet another drama of life, of survival against great odds, and of victories as improbable as the sun rising from the west.

Great allegorical treatise of a current event in American leadership and the Luo people's contribution towards it. A book for a mind seeking meaning in an otherwise complex world.

THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND [ISBN-13: 978-145382989-9]:In the Novel, THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, Joseph R. Alila addresses the role of spirituality in life and politics in a society under cultural and political transitions. As a battery of 'colonial forces' conspire against Africa's old way of life, wizards and prophets, who are losing clients of the ordinary kind to New Way Churches, are forced to adopt to the new spiritual reality, even if it means taking funny-sounding Greek names. In this work of fiction, Alila exposes the work of a woman of wisdom (Angelina Nyangi), her Ramogi people, their ways, their political leadership, and the perils of political cohabitation in Kenya's young, multiethnic, multiparty democracy. Nyangi's lifetime experiences remind the reader that modern religious dispensations might have robbed soothsayers and wizards of a lot of clients of the ordinary kind but not the important ones: She discovers that the new political and business elites love to have their ancestors' "sixth sense" watching over their backs. She is their ancestors' sixth sense, only she is no prophet. Now, in her sunset years, Nyangi reminisces about a life well lived, but one which had seen many antsy professional close calls shared between corrupt politicians and such strange clients as a professor of knowledge. If Angelina's longevity has become abusive, the unseemly conducts of her eldest son and the supposed "Seer-in-waiting" (Thomas) continues to hang around her neck like a bad dream.

A good read for those looking for content beyond the mundane of daily life. Gives a peak into the Luo mind.

BIRTHRIGHT: A LUO TRAGEDY [ISBN-13: 978145638225-4]: Author Joseph R. Alila’s newest novel, BIRTHRIGHT, is a narrative of how one man’s cruel silence over his son’s ancestry almost destroys the latter among a people who value bloodlines, protocol, and order in marriage. The battle over birthright in the home of one Odongo Ougo of Thim Lich has turned tragic on many fronts. Atieno, a victim of a marriage protocol that destined her to the rank of second wife, even though she is older and longer-married wife of Odongo, has had enough. Atieno swears her son, Okulu, on an oath to finish off Aura and her son Juma. Primed to kill, Okulu, an abused man Odongo only halfheartedly had embraced as his own son, seriously wounds Aura, his stepmother, necessitating emergency surgical intervention. Next, Okulu turns his nighttime rage on Juma, Odongo’s juvenile son with Aura and the spiritual first son, who has just posted a perfect middle-school grade and is heading for a famous Kenyan high school. Talk of instant justice, Okulu’s blind rage turns tragic, as he, for a period, loses the function of both hands after Grace, Juma’s dog, bites him off a rabbit carcass. On a night of many unusual events, Juma, the boy running for his life, rescues a young woman, Eilzabeth, who is sinking into a hot volcanic quagmire in an alien land. Just when Juma thinks that he has met a future wife, he discovers that Elizabeth is his stepsister, through his father’s youthful indiscretions. A couple of nights later, Abich, Atieno’s youngest child, is on the prowl at the hospital, where Aura lay indisposed, when hospital security arrests her for impersonating a nurse with the intent to cause harm to a patient. Odongo declares no contest and pleads with a Dr. Otago to set her free. Talk of guts as an angler becomes fish, Abich moves on to marry the arresting doctor-in-charge (Dr. Otago), with Odongo looking on ashamed and in silence. It takes these tragic events, and the subsequent unraveling of Odongo’s past of unsettling acts against women, including Atieno, to start real dialogue in his home and resolve historical injustices that had driven a woman and two of her children into desperate criminal acts. The center holds, Aura recovers, and the Odongo home sees four more baby boys, but Odongo must face his past demons to assuage the afflicted and reestablish his honor. It turns out Okulu is Odongo’s biological son, and he is a man after all. But what restitution could Odongo pay to Okulu after all the years of communal abuse of the latter by his kin? Okulu the villain has become the invalid victim. In the novel, BIRTHRIGHT, JR Alila captures 'Luo birthright' as an imperfect spiritual vehicle to power and privilege in a polygamous Luo home.

A great literary novel with an anthropological look of the dynamics of marriage, conflict and conflict resolution in a Luo home. Well written..

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

The Choirmaster (A Spiritual Tragedy)

When Michael arrives in Mud Valley, New York, to teach music, he encounters one Eva Joseph who shepherds him to Mud Valley Church, where his musical talents blossom overnight. The evangelizing power of his gospel music is an instant blessing to the church; church coffers and pews soon overflow. But Michael’s spiritual gifts soon turn into a curse to the congregation. His undoings are his malleable nature, easygoing manners, and big persona on the music stage.

Four spinsters within the congregation are in contention to domesticate Michael, and prospective mothers-in-law are exhausting their recipes, throwing weekly dinners for him and his choir. But Eva, a poor girl with no particular ancestral pedigree, has pitched her tent in Michael’s heart, knowing that, at his core, Michael is human, weak. Constantly attacking Eva’s flanks is Jane Caleb, the daughter of socialite Risper Caleb—a mother whose dedication to the interests of her daughter make a joke of Mrs. Burke in the show Keeping Appearances.

When Jane suddenly hosts Michael in the Caleb mansion overnight, rumor mills run amok. Smitten and vengeful, Eva falls on one Saul the Snake. Violated, Eva walks away with the weighty secret, and quickly traps Michael. A dejected Pastor David blesses the union, hoping to end the infighting over Michael’s heart among powerful families in his congregation. However, Michael's marriage to Eva fails to douse Jane’s passion. No wonder, three years later, Jane and Michael are caught in a tryst. Amid the uproar, Jane bites the apple, with Pastor David’s acquiescence, and Risper Caleb gets her wish, eventually.

Mrs. Kay David’s question, “What mother celebrates when her daughter snatches a man from his wife? What church community readily honors such a celebration unless her children drank the milk of perdition?” well captures the tragedy in her husband’s church.

Joseph R.Alila.

The Thirteenth Widow (A Novel): The Story (Part 1)

What if you woke up one morning with a broken arm, a broken rib, and six stitches of some fiber across your heavily bandaged face, and you were in a room you couldn’t see, except it smelled like carbolic acid (excuse my archaic language); you knew that you’ve been badly banged and your body ached generally.

Sure there was a feminine voice in the room, and the voice was saying that you’ll be okay; that you were worse a few days before; that some people she couldn’t talk about in public nearly killed you. “You’ll live, Mr. Okoth,” she says, walking out of the room before you could tell her that you were thirsty. Regardless she couldn’t have heard your mumbled words, and she couldn’t have obeyed your need because you were a Nothing-by-Mouth case.

You walked out a month later with a part of your life left behind. You move on back to your life as the headmaster of Soko Primary School, knowing quite well that a middle-school foe had been behind your ordeal; that the woman you remember having shared beer with; the woman you spent a night with, had been a police bait placed on your alcoholic path by friends of your middle-school foe—a bait that would deliver you to hungry intelligence dogs looking for Mwakenya sympathizers. Don’t worry if you never heard the word Mwakenya. Those who lived through Kenya’s politics in the 1980s know that Mwakenya was an underground movement whose sole agenda was to bring down KANU’s one-party state. You were beaten senseless because someone—your middle-school foe—claimed that you were Mwakenya agent, yet you were not, and you had nowhere to complain.

You, Okoth weren’t that lucky, for a few years later, the same foe now was the chief of your location at a time when Kenyan location chiefs wielded much power and directly answered to the President of the nation. You remained a mere headmaster of a Middle School. You drunk together with your chief, call him Chief Omolo, and the chief could insist that you escorted him home, and you did so because no one ever said no to the chief. Along the way to the chief’s abode, you sampled chang’aa (an illicit brew) and the chief did the buying, and you did the drinking. In fact, he only sniffed the bottles of chang’aa you shared. You felt happy as you ambled your way deeper and deeper into the chief’s village, sampling chang’aa as you went. To an observer, the two of you were just two buddies walking shoulder to shoulder. But you were drunk and he wasn’t, and the chief was up to something sinister.

What if you woke up early dawn on a strange headache, singing in praise of your wife Jane, except you were not in your home? You were two ridges away to the south in the house of some widow left behind by a distant cousin. She had been asleep before you sang, and your strange song ticked her off, and now she was ordering you leave her house before sunrise. In her deal with Chief Omolo, who had delivered you to her, the sun was not supposed to rise with you still in the home in mourning; your mission was supposed to have been so secret that even you, the drunkard, wasn’t supposed to have known that you had been in the home of curses. Now you understood the joke. You knew that the late Otieno died a strange death, a fact that had kept his brothers away from his beautiful widow. Your situation stunk: In your drunken stupor, you had inherited the spiritual burdens in your late cousin’s home. If you were a scholar of the Old Testament, or if you had read Apostle Paul’s Letter to Hebrews, you understood that you had become what the people of faith called the scapegoat—the goat that left the sanctuary with communal sins for an uncertain journey into the wild desert where predators roamed.

(To continue . . .).

The Milayi Curse (a Novella)

In The Milayi Curse, Joseph R. Alila (the Author of “Sunset on Polygamy”) tells a story about a centuries-old conflict between two ancestral cousins, the Jamokos and Milayis, both members of the Jokamilayi—a fictional Luo (Kenyan) clan. The conflict is of a spiritual as well as social nature, with one early Christian Priest (Father James O’Kilghor) struggling to make sense of an alien culture and reconcile the Jokamilayi. It is a tale about spirituality, honor, betrayal, pride, poverty, wealth and uneasy kinship in fast-changing times, with Christianity and formal education breaking class barriers, bursting myths, and “turning things upside down.” Poor Charles Milayi graduates out of middle school with excellent grades. Just when his widowed mother (Consolata Milayi) has lost hope of her gifted son ever stepping into a high school, he becomes a beneficiary of “a secret enemy hand of providence” only known to Father James. Father James protects the identity of Milayi’s benefactor because a Jamoko publicly sponsoring a Milayi child could unsettle many souls on either side of the unhealthy blood divide in Jokamilayi, more so because the benefactor’s son (Thomas Jamoko) cannot graduate out of middle school. Charles Milayi excels in his studies, joins college, and becomes a lawyer, a businessperson, and a cabinet minister. Having broken through the economic class barrier, Charles marries none other than the Prime Minister’s daughter. However, back home, Hon. Milayi’s people remain bitterly divided along bloodlines, thanks to the century-old curse with origins in old wars, pillage of war spoils, and ancestral wealth. The so-called “Milayi curse” feeds a social schism and spiritual war blamed on the unsettled spirit of a fallen war hero named Milayi Raburu. The endless cold war among ancestral cousins has made Father James O’Kilghor’s ministry to the Jokamilayi a trying experience, even for a man known for his controversial “Africanized-evangelizing strategies” that allow active traditional priests and witch doctors to receive baptism. CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/3448088

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

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

BOOK RELEASE

COMING SOON

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY:

from the Sudan to American Power

(A Novel)

By Joseph R. Alila

www.createspace.com

OF TWO WOMEN OF HOPE AMID REJECTION

I am Joseph R Alila, author of such novels as SUNSET ON POLYGAMY and THE MILAYI CURSE.
In my newest novel, WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, I have employed a story about the trying times of two widows to lead my readers along an anthropological journey into some cultural aspects of marriage, kinship and inheritance among the Luo of Eastern Africa. WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART is an ansty cry of a strong-willed, unfortunate widow (Apiny) with the "spiritually-untouchable" tag hanging on her neck, who, together with her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) insist that they belong with the clan into which they married, even as their immediate in-laws consider the younger widow to be a living "a curse," who must go. In this choice, the women have taken the higher cultural moral road than their heartless in-laws. Moreover, the women are on the right side of Luo Customary Law, which states that women and their children belong with the clan, and not just the immediate family of their husbands.
In Awino accepting a distant brother-in-law’s hand in marriage so that her burdened daughter-in-law ( Apiny) can find a kitchen in which to sleep as the latter awaits the birth of her next husband, I tell my readers a story about undying faith, courage, patience and humility, on the part of the women, and charity, on the part of the widower (Misuru). That Awino agrees to give her daughter-in-law a tender son to marry is a steep moral hill she, Awino, has to overcome amid daily echoes of laughter and ridicule of both women by their contemporaries.
But my readers should remeber that this is eighteenth-century Luoland, in which due process in matters of birth, marriage, death has to be observed religiously, lest unsettled spirits run amock. Moreover, the Seer says that the future of a whole people is tied to the strength of arms of the yet-to-be-born children and grandchildren of the two widows.

KIDS ARE KIDS, RICH OR POOR

As the friendship between the little boys matured, Charles Milayi would start to exchange visits with Thomas Jamoko.
At first, Milayi’s mother protested when she learnt that the young Thomas Jamoko was coming to visit her home. She was a widow—a poor widow. She had one cooking pot and less than five earthen platters and bowls. Like their grandparents, the Milayis still used crocodile scales as spoons. Mrs. Milayi had exactly one bag of grain she hoped to last until the next harvest, which was three months away.
By contrast, the Jamokos could serve lunch to two hundred people and still be on their feet. They had hundreds of metal spoons and fancy chinaware. The Jamokos had so many cattle that, often, some cows were not milked. That is how rich the Jamokos were.
Food aside, for clothing, Consolata Milayi had one dress, and Charles Milayi only had the school uniform for his clothing. That is how poor the Milayis were.
"Milayi, you like bringing trouble on us. We have no oil with which to cook for your spoilt friend"
"Be fair Ma. Tom is just like me. He eats everything I eat," the little boy complained.
"Milayi, since when was this Tom Jamoko like you? He is a Jamoko. He only eats meat. And look at you. You don’t have a shirt on your back, and have no trousers on your buttocks. How can a Jamoko be eating what you eat?"
"But he is my friend, Mama," responded the boy in tears. For him, Tom was the dearest friend outside home.
The boy was right. They were real friends. The young Jamoko occasionally gave him an old set of school uniforms, pencils, and some new book to read. Milayi had sported the donated uniforms even though they were a size or two too small for him. Meanwhile, whenever Jamoko’s old uniforms suddenly would disappear, his mother would assume that her careless son had lost them in the playground.
"No, I do not want you to cry, Milayi. It is just that you have to know that a poor man does not walk in the same party as a rich man," Mrs. Milayi implored her son. "Charles, a poor man goes fishing for food, while a rich man goes fishing for fun. Haven’t you watched the Jamokos as they fish along the Kuja? They return part of their catch back to the water. And a rich man hunts the buffalo for its horns and skin, as poor folks struggle over its meat. The Jamokos behave like Father James, the White Priest, who fishes for fun."
"Mama, we are not poor," the boy responded in a very sure and measured tone, all to the total surprise of his mother.
"What, Charles? We are not poor? Yet we eat beans and arrowroots most of the year? Yet, you have no shirt with which to cover your back?" his mother had responded after a brief pause. She surely was surprised by the boy’s remark.
"Didn’t Father James say that poverty is only in a person’s mind, while wealth resides in one’s heart? You think we are poor. In my heart, I feel rich," the child had waxed amazingly wise, taking his mother aback in the process. She would for some long minute stir her bubbling pot of red-millet porridge in silence.
"Milayi, now, you want to cause trouble with your strange ideas. Father James never said a thing like that," she had declared hoping to silence the boy.
"But that is what the story of the Rich Young Ruler is all about. Mama, you were there when Father James read the story?" the Grade Four schoolboy had said, again sending his mother’s head spinning. The young boy had a rather strange perspective on life. Mrs. Milayi was convinced that modern schooling was turning her little boy into some kind of wise adult. "How can poverty—her obvious poverty—be wealth?" she wondered in silence.
"Now, go to the river and bathe. It is getting late. And don’t imagine that you are rich. Charles, you are poor. You are very poor. One of these days you will bring shame to this house by inviting the Minister’s Daughter for lunch," his mother had dismissed him, using bathing in the river as an excuse.
The boy of strange wisdom left for the river, with his dog named Tom, in pursuit.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Milayi wondered what she would cook for the rich man’s son. Inwardly, she was intrigued and touched by the wisdom coming out of her son’s mouth: poverty is only in a person’s mind, while wealth resides in one’s heart. These words of her young son appeared to have given her the courage to face the day. She instantly resolved to entertain the Jamoko boy.
Thomas Jamoko did come.
Mrs. Milayi treated the two boys the way little boys should be treated: "Boys eat potatoes and vegetables and cassava. That is what they dream about in their sleep. In their sleep, most boys never dream about some meaty dish. A boy wakes up with cooked cassava or potato in his hands," she had persuaded herself to believe. And she could have been more right than wrong. Most boys of those days loved sweet potatoes. Encouraged by these thoughts, she cooked potatoes as well as she could.
The two boys ate the sweet potatoes on the grass under a shady tree in front of her house. Then they enjoyed some ripe guava that nature provided in abundance. Potatoes and Guava, kind of an odd mixture, isn’t it? But if they became constipated on that day, Mrs. Milayi would have taken that as a sign of good feeding.
Mrs. Milayi was too ashamed to have allowed the "rich boy" into her meager abode that even lacked a three-legged stool.
Between rounds of sweet potatoes, the boys played some marksmanship game—shooting at domestic lizards and hedgerow birds with homemade bows and arrows.
Later that day, Thomas Jamoko returned to his home, truly believing that the outing had been a special adventure. Kids are kids, rich or poor.


SOURCE: THE MILAYI CURSE Lulu Books http://www.lulu.com/810018

Novel by Joseph R. Alila)

WAYS OF A WIDOW

Otin looked past Apiny to his stepbrother, who continued to eat unconcerned, with his eyes set on Apiny as if daring him (Otin) to touch her. Otin wondered why nobody had addressed him. The silence was noisy and uneasy. His stepbrother was eating as if nothing was going on. But even without the childish noises he occasionally made, and the workings of his teeth against tender goat ribs, Magundho’s location and silence should have been a loud-enough announcement of his presence.
And there was Apiny who continued to give Otin that sympathetic, motherly look only a mother could have given.
Then a voice told him, "Otin, my son, it is time to move on. You are a young man with a lot of life ahead of you."
Magundho coughed again, forcing Apiny to turn around and face him. This time, she wore a mother’s stern look on her face— the kind of look reserved for a child, who was about to dip his fingers into a bowl of special soup reserved for his father. Magundho stopped eating, wondering whether the woman was about to give him his marching orders for being rude to Otin. Wasn’t he, Magundho, the impostor between two lovers whose relationship had lasted for more than three decades?
Otin looked at the two gray heads engaged in nonverbal confrontation, then smiled as a voice told him, "My son, this is the way of a widow; she neither has scruples to pick, nor bounds to obey; no man, however long he stays in her arms, can claim to own her. Wake up, my son; leave her alone; move on; go to your wife and children."
Otin left without a word.
"Magundho, I don’t appreciate your being abusive toward Otin," Apiny broke the silence. It was some five minutes after Otin had left.
"He deserved it. He should have read the signs outside instead of entering here like a bull on heat," saying so, Magundho went back to his meal.
"Men! O Men!" Apiny Nyodero whispered—wondering whether the eating elder behind her was a better bet for the future than the retreating, youthful father of her children.



Source:
WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART

A novel by Joseph R. Alila.

https://www.createspace.com/4341373

ISBN 978-1438207513