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

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

In THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER–Joseph R. Alila presents a narrative about a spiritual journey of the Luo of eastern Africa to President Obama’s White House. In this historical fiction, Novelist and Poet Joseph R. Alila (THE MILAYI CURSE) vividly captures the perils of the Luo spiritual journey from Egypt to the White House—a journey that lasts 600 years. In the carefully crafted narrative that starts with one Ajwang’ Opodho in the old Sudan to one Hassan Opodho in Kenya to one President Hassan Ajwang’ in America, Alila visits the infamous LUO BEAD OF PASSION that caused the schism that scattered the Luo tribes throughout East and Central Africa.Reading Joseph R Alila’s THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY (https://www.createspace.com/3373494) one realizes that the timeless narrative is as much about a physical journey through time as it is a Spiritual passage of the Luo people. This novel, like most of JR Alila’s novels, offers the reader an opportunity to glean into the Luo mind and complex anthropological space that include such controversial practices as Polygamy and Widow Inheritance (Alila’s SUNSET ON POLYGAMY; WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART).

BOOK RELEASE

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (From the Sudan to American Power) By Joseph R. Alila.

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (A Novel) 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.

JR Alila

"OUR LUO SUNRISE IN THE WEST (Old Prophecies and Our Improbable Journey)"

Fans of "SUNSET ON POLYGAMY," I'm digging in to polish my next novel, "OUR LUO SUNRISE IN THE WEST" or some title to that effect. If you wanna scoop me, you ghost writers out there, go right ahead, at the risk of fighting with my ancestors. Anyway, if you are not in the know, the Nilotic Tribe, The LUO, fathered the new man of the world, The Man of the Moment.
It is a tough project. I am grabbing every catchy phrase and idea that visit my dreams. Writing one line is taking me two days, on some cloggy days. You must be wondering why? when the history of the Luo is out there.
This is why: Novelists are not historians; they are not prophets, even as their works may foretell some events , as Novelist JR Alila in the closing chapter in THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND. They are not bound by any truths. They have to try to relive the lives of some of the subjects of their imaginations and creations. Novelists try to dig into the hows and whys, even if these are unusual or untrue. For example, they have to imagine what their subjects could have done if faced with a hyena eating a Buffalo; or when forced to live in a cave of serpents like a Special Forces Soldier; or what a woman, ejected by her in-laws, would have done in the middle of nowhere in a vast wilderness in seventeenth-century Sudan. Novelists embellish their facts because they may have to (for example) describe the musical bowel movements of a glutton in the middle of a scarce meal, even if such the noises were absent! So don't take catchy "commercial" phrases from a scribe like me as sources of wisdom!
Anyway, I'm trying to put this historical event of our times, precipitated by the very grandson of Ramogi the Great, into prophetic and escatological context (you may use your GoogleSearch or Dictionary here), even though I am no prophet.
Don't misunderstand me: novelists purposes are never vain, even as their truths are embellished. The reader walks away with some new knowledge and some truth from amidst some half-truths. The Novelist has some agenda though, even as he may just be some innocent storyteller. You may read a story and come out with a plethora of literary devices used--- virgin metaphors, oxymorons---all products of the language, slang and culture he or she lives. But most novelists don't wake up and say, "I'll use so many metaphors in this action packed, boiler of a paragraph." The novelist, often, is just talking to you, on a street, at a diner, in bed without thinking about the literary classification of his or her work.
But this project is taking me long to complete because the characters such as Ramogi the Great were not mere men; their wives were not ordinary women; their decisions could have impeached a modern President; they walked under a special cloud; they fasted and prayed more often than you and I, because their burdens were weightier and their circumstances more dire than any modern president would ever face, even if these ancestors could have had responsibilities over less than 200 men!
But even if the final novel may end up being a mere product of my imagination, I want my readers to realise that we as MAN have travelled a difficult road, and are here today because of sacrifices made by those before us. Tread the land with reverence; fast and pray more often, think before you burn 50 gallons of gas chasing an illusive girlfriend or boyfriend; eat what you need and not what you want; donate when you can!

Happy New Year
Joseph R Alila
(Author: WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART)

You Mr/Ms Prejudized Out There:

Are you struggling with the soul-snapping-and-draining Sin of Prejudice? Are hate and prejudice lowering your productivity at work?

Is your mental, spiritual and physical health going down the drain because of private guilt against spouse, child, friend, anybody, or self?

If your answer is yes, know that You are Not Alone. You need help. Reading "essential literature" (Like the Bible for me as a Christian) and face-to-face counsel can help.

Writing letters, stories, . . . too can help.

I have found myself healthier, emotionally, spiritually and socially by writing books that examine the inner lives and private journeys of individuals within societies, both modern and historical.
Since embarking on my current literary journey, I have found it easier to empathize with other people's situations without appearing to demean them.

JR Alila
Author:

-"SUNSET ON POLYGAMY,"

-"WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART,"

-"SINS OF OUR HEARTS"

-"THE MILAYI CURSE"

Spirituality and Luo Marriage

Sunset on Polygamy
(A Novel by JOSEPH R ALILA):

(PublishAmerica, 2007)

http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=18178

In this African, cultural-anthropological drama, the author (Joseph R Alila) explores such universal issues as competitive love and romance, spirituality and moral conduct and order, farming, fairness, power structure, conflicts and conflict resolution, all within the context of a polygamous Luo home, as seen through a grown-up child's eyes. Beyond the polygamous home, the author takes us through an anthropological, communal tour of the spiritual underpinnings of such issues as farming, death, mourning, marriage, remarriage, courtship, morality and order, and power within a Luo communal unit. Alila delicately addresses the conflict between (arcane) cultural practices and spiritual understanding of a disease and its possible cures, on one side, versus proven modern medical evidence and understanding of a disease epidemic and its management, on the other.
In Sunset on Polygamy, the author teaches that, even in a polygamous home, the man and every woman must communicate, must play, must occasionally visit, verbally, physically and mentally, one-on-one, so as to survive `the grind' that is life in polygamy. This one-on-one communication among all parties must continue even as families move through crises.

POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY IN KENYA

FANS,

You want to join other Kenyans and friends of Kenyan in mourning the victims of the current political stalemate in Kenya which followed the bungled vote count after the Kenya 2007 Election. We should all pray for Divine intervention in the hearts of our politicians.
The immediate change of the Constitution (as a first Item in the New Perliamentary Business) and the creation of a Prime Minister's Post for Hon. Raila Odinga (or anybody else acceptable to ODM--the party with a parliamentary majority) may help difuse the current stalemate. This proposal may be unpleasant to some politicians, but it would help disperse power to the agrieved (Hon. Odinga and ODM) and ease pressure on the Nation which remains ours and requires urgent healing.
Of immediate importance is an end to the bloodletting in Kenya, a return to political sanity among politicians, and the creation of the "Judicial Review" proposed by Commissioner Tumwa and his co-commissioners to sort out what happened during vote-tallying at KICC, and offer remedial action to agrieved parties; if some ECK members and Staff must go to jail over the bungled electoral process, so be it.
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You want to read the "WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND" by Joseph R. Alila (published by Lulu(http://www.lulu.com/) for a meaningful reflection on the ethnicized Kenyan electoral politics, and some of the author's fascinating prophetic lines on the "The (Preeminent) Ramogi Warrior" (Chapters 20-23)

Joseph R. Alila

Spirituality and Kenyan Politics

Spirituality and Kenyan Politics
the last time I checked on Kenyan politics from my remote location in the diaspora, every politician was in a church or Mosque, and sometimes in both in the same week. And our brothers in Bungoma appeared to have been reading my most recent book, The Wise One in Ramogiland (ISBN 14303-2554-3). There is no doubt Kenyan politics has taken a spiritual dimension as projected in my book. There is a Priest running for President; a senior APK Priest has joined the Gachoka parliamentary race. And our brothers in Bungoma and Luyialand believe that Masinde's Prophesy has been fulfilled---the man known as Agwambo (the mystique), a dedicated fan of both political football and real football, is their answer and vehicle to the promised land.

Joseph R Alila.
go to www.amazon.com; lulu (www.lulu.com) for your copy.