Novelist JR Alila

Fiction

Sunset on Polygamy; The American Polygamist; The Thirteenth Widow; The Milayi Curse; The Wise One of Ramogiland; Sins of Our hearts; Whisper to My Aching Heart; Not on My Skin; The Choirmaster; The Luo Dreamers Odyssey (From the Sudan to American Power); Birthright (A Luo Tragedy); A Fishy Matter; Rebels

Poetry

Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa; Rateng’ and Bride

I am author Joseph R. Alila, a native of Kenya living in Schenectady, New York, from where I have penned thirteen novels and two epic poems. My poetry and verse address a variety of areas of the human experience, and 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 (as was the case in the lost scripts of the staged plays, THE FRUITLESS TREE and WHAT A HUSBAND, written in the 1980s). Thirteen novels and two poems later, learning the art of writing on my feet, the literary bug has bitten me, and friends and fans say that I’m a good novelist with strengths in the narrative and analytical forms and with a penchant for stinging dialogue. I laugh at such suggestions, but the readers may be right. Sages long gone were right in their observation that writing is like wine: an 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 about 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 national and then multinational diaspora destinations to pursue scholarly dreams. I have 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 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 and THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW.

My writings have tended to be anthropological–treating my subjects as actors or victims of their social, spiritual and physical environments and times. The novels, WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, NOT ON MY SKIN, BIRTHRIGHT (A LUO TRAGEDY), THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, MAYA, and lately A FISHY MATTER and REBELS 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 Luo home base to chase scientific dreams abroad. But fifteen novels and two Epic Poems (RATENG’ AND BRIDE and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA) later, I find myself 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, THE MILAYI CURSE, WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, and REBELS) whose perilous yokes are the marital culture and practices whose original intentions were novel, and protective (as in WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, REBELS and THE MILAYI CURSE), but which cultural practices turned spiritual death traps, from which they have struggled to escape.

I have 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, I mourn increasingly dependent Africa, which has become 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 came to pass, they must be taken as illustrations of what thoughtful fiction (science or literary 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, Luo politics, and Luo thought. No wonder, my literary breakthrough novel BIRTHRIGHT (A LUO TRAGEDY) has been a classroom text in African Anthropology and thought in universities.

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 workplace, through the eyes of diaspora wanderer.

My readers are right, my literary journey no longer is recreational; like aged wine, it has come of age, to quote sages gone before us. Welcome, sample it, and however it tastes, let others know, and holler here on amazon.

Author JR Alila’s REBELS

In Joseph R Alila’s novel REBELS, in two short months, young Betty Kinda changes from a bride to a widow before she even enters her marital bed. She soon realizes her fate rests in the hands of her in-laws, who have paid bride price and are required to give her a new husband before the burial of her late fiancé (Olongo). But Betty has her own ideas: the rebel in her sees a chance to restart the life marriage had cut short, formal education. Betty flies from the custody of her parents (the Kindas), travels tens of miles to Kisumu Town, and finds refuge in the hands of one Nurse Rose—an annealed widowed nurse who has seen her share of rough marital life—with whom she meets in a hospital emergency room where Betty is admitted with heat exhaustion. Betty quickly learns she is pregnant and is facing the prospects of returning to her parents’ custody. That is when Nurse Rose ‘adopts’ the rebel girl and quickly enrolls her in a day secondary school, putting the young widow’s in-laws (the Ombos) and parents (the Kindas) in a culturally and legally untenable situation. Tempers flare across the Nyogunde Valley, over how the Ombos would meet their cultural marital obligations to the late Olongo when the bride is in school tens of miles away.

JR Alila’s “A FISHY MATTER” (a novel)

In JR Alila’s novel A FISHY MATTER [ISBN-13: 978-1541311657], by a single unusual act, a beautiful witch, Kala, unsettles decades of peace between residents of Korondo Ridge and their neighbors on Osure Ridge.
Obera of Korondo Ridge is an unhappy woman: every Friday evening, her fresh-fish dish sends Odingo, her alcoholic husband, fleeing to alcohol dens before she even serves her soup.
Across the River Dolo, in one Chan’s home, Kala, a beautiful witch, has a different problem: she wants a child she cannot get from Otis, her witch husband. Specifically complicating her situation is her being a witch, a night runner–a fact that has limited her options from within Chan’s home. Didn’t the Luo of old say, “Jaber jaula–the beautiful one has a fault”?
Urged by her mother-in-law (Wilkista), who is anxious to cover her son’s shame, Kala looks beyond Osure Ridge to neighboring Korondo Ridge for seeds for her field. Thanks to her nocturnal life, one night, Kala encounters Odingo returning from a late-night alcohol party. A few nocturnal sightings later, Kala nabs Odingo, charms him into a zombie, gets her wish, and dumps the dumb zombie into a dead well in Dolo Valley.
The Luo say, “Jajuok ido gotieno to ing’eye–a witch charms people at night, but he or she eventually is known.” That is what happens in the Kala/Odingo saga. A boy within Chan’s home talks about Odingo’s disappearance. Chan is rocked when he realizes that his first wife, Wilkista–a woman with whom he has lived for over thirty years and the mother of his six sons–is a practicing witch, and so is Otis, their last born.
Odingo eventually regains speech, but only after religious ministers and a mysterious passerby play their spiritual hands in the case.
The Kala-Odingo saga is not over on both ridges. On Korondo Ridge, Kala charms her way into the hearts of Odingo’s family, principally by flaunting “a shared blood bond” at them. Call it the cat palling with the mouse, Kala soon is secretly dating Odingo, her victim, but a few pairs of eyes are watching from both ridges.
On Osure Ridge, Kala turns rogue: she directs her charms at Chan; she even bats down the father-in-law in his own home.
When Kala’s pregnancy becomes obvious, a raging verbal war erupts between Wilkista and Chan over the swirling claim that she sent her daughter-in-law (and fellow witch) to the aliens of Korondo Ridge, to get seeds for her field. Angry over the scandalous exposure, Wilkista orders Otis to get rid of Kala, just as the pregnant belle walks on the conversation.
Kala realizes her life is in danger, crosses Dolo Valley, and lands in brave Odingo’s waiting hands. Both elope to a distant city, leaving residents of Korondo Ridge and Osure Ridge wondering what has hit them. It is a first: neither ridge ever before lost a wife to their cross-valley neighbors.
Chan fights for his honor in legal courts, as Kala, now “born again”, sets her roots in Korondo Ridge.

Author JR Alila’s REBELS (a novel)

In author Joseph R Alila’s new novel, REBELS [ISBN 13: 978-1548693435], set in Kenya’s 1970s and 1980s, a widowed bride (Betty Kinda), flees from the custody of her parents, leaving her in-laws, who must give her a replacement husband before they burry her late fiancé (Mika Olongo), in an untenable situation. Reaching Kisumu City, Betty meets one Nurse Rose, an annealed widow, who empathizes with her, ‘adopts’ her, and enrolls her in a day secondary school (she is pregnant). Suddenly, tempers flare across the Nyogunde Valley, pitting Betty’s in-laws (the Ombos of Korondo Ridge) and her parents (the Kindas of Rabuor Ridge) as elders debate how the Ombos would burry and mourn their son when his widow/bride is in school tens of miles away.

Betty eventually accepts one Luka Okiya—the replacement husband her in-laws ‘post’ to her. Okiya, the Luo jater (levirate), turns out to be a perfect match with Betty; after all, he is the man whose overtures she ignored in favor of the late Olongo.

Thanks to Nurse Rose, Betty catches the metaphorical wind and flies with it, with Okiya in tow. The cultural rebels, who even ‘tie the knot’ in an unprecedented (at least on Korondo Ridge) sneak church wedding, graduate from college–Betty with a degree in law and Okiya with a degree in government—with their three sons and a daughter cheering them on!

While the Okiyas sweat it out among Kenya’s urban diaspora, raising children as they climb the academic ladder and eventually become senior government officers, back home, on Korondo Ridge, several verbal wars rage on over heritage and land.

At its core, JR Alila’s REBELS is about the modern Luo at war with her past that is not letting go easily. In this enduring, heart-warming love story, we affirm that even rebels sworn to unity can stumble. When Okiya falters, in anger, after their son Mark calls him an unthinkable name, Betty is tested to the limit. She must weigh building the legacy of her late husband (Olongo) against her continued loyalty to Okiya—the jater (levirate) who pulled her out of the spiritual cloud of her late husband and joined her in chasing a modern dream, formal education. Betty, the trained family lawyer, discovers that a Luo jater (levirate) can’t be divorced! But yes, he can be ejected. Will she do that at the expense of family unity?

Writing Tips

“Luke” is not “Look;”
“Affect” is not “Effect;”
“Disinterested” is not “Uninterested”

Maya (Synopsis)…

Maya (Synopsis)

MAYA, a novel, is a narrative about ordinary people, with human flaws, caught up in the constant glare of life. They discover they only can cheat about, run or hide from, or ignore the flaws at their 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. She then crosses Eagle Streetto enquire whether the dog’s owner (Mike) is suing Raul, but 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 as Mike falls victim to an enraged boyfriend’s arrow of passion. Wounded and helpless, Mike is at the mercy of a stalker named Booker, a moonlighting evangelist he, Mike, previously unmasked while the preacher waited tables at Bar Delirium.  No mercy for Maya, only a slow death.

Maya soon confronts her past. Also witnessing the murder is Officer Jimmy Depuy–a child from Maya’s selfish past. Neither Raul nor Maya nor Officer Depuy knows this. Then Detective John unearths the blood knot, and soon District Attorney Hess is advancing criminal motives against the Rauls and Officer Depuy.

Harmony streets already sing a disharmonious tune from economically depressed youths and the elderly, and Captain Depuy and his officers are edgy. Now, Captain Depuy has a personal battle to fight, for the line between suspect and witness to a murder has become blurry.

Maya fits the murder-mystery-thriller genre, but like recent novels penned by this author, it has a strong literary fiction aspect to it. MAYA should appeal to those readers who seek to understand, in human character, matters beyond the mundane of life.

A Fishy Matter

JR Alila’s latest novel “A FISHY MATTER” is now available at both createspace.com and amazon.com. It is also available as a kindle e-book.

Sunset on Polygamy: A Tragedy: Cultural practices and Disease Epidemics

In Joseph R. Alila’s first novel, Sunset on Polygamy (ISBN 13: 9781495402135) , marital cultural lore and spirituality combine to breed a tragic confusion in a land faced with a deadly new disease epidemic, with public debates raging as to whether the killer is ancestral chira (curse) or Acute Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

I this work of fiction, Joe Ochom, a young man testing his verbal skills in the art of seduction, soon realizes that corralling an educated girl (Megan) requires more than adorning his high school blazer in the marketplace. He proves indecisive and cowardly in the battlefield—a weakness his principal competitor, polygamist Jim Kokech, exploits to the fullest.

Having crushed the young bookish competitor for the attention of Megan, suddenly faces a revolt from his four wives. Felicia, the first wife—exploits the situation to punish her “wayward husband”; she locks him out of her bedroom just when they must celebrate the planting season as the principal “spiritual co-owners” of the home. Jim’s pastoral calendar comes to a sudden halt—reminding him that Luo marital life indeed is a complex “religious journey” with the first wife as the center of worship. Suddenly, the spiritual battle among the women, symbolized by the clearly demarcated hallowed boundaries between their farms,  reaches their bedrooms. The home enters a conjugal lockdown that Jim and any of his junior wives could only breach at the risk of dire spiritual consequences. The crafty second wife, Milka, engages Jim in a believable romantic ruse that fools even Felicia. Wrought with jealousy at her archenemy, Milka, Felicia yields to Jim—prompting a stampede among the women for access to him. Jim’s male folly still thinks he’s having fun.

Baby boom! A year later, Felicia looks from the sidelines as the home welcomes three newborns, with Maria, Milka and Nyapora presenting a child each to their shared husband. Felicia has reached menopause, but instead of embracing her new physiological reality, and aging gracefully as the matriarch of her home, she becomes angry at Jim and her co-wives for “breeding like rats.” Struggling with a broiling bout of jealousy at her co-wives and nursing unpredictable desires of her husband, Felicia brews one immoral “romantic” mischief after another and nearly kills her husband while trying a cultic solution to her marital problems. Depressed, Felicia flees to the Big City to escape the shameful spectacle she is among the women of Korondo Ridge.

But Korondo Ridge has no rest; Exit Felicia, and tragedy brings home Gina—a beautiful young widow who has just returned from the Big City with the body of her late husband, George Amolo. Now, to the utter dismay of elders, Gina refuses to receive any man into her bed, arguing that her husband died of “a strange new disease”. The elders refuse to listen, asserting that George died of his father’s “chira” (curse), which only the very wise among them could cleanse. Amolo protests, saying that Malaria killed George. Concerned for the spiritual health of their Korondo House, the elders eventually convince Gina to enter a one-night “marriage” with a “Jakowiny” (a vagabond) “to settle George’s restless spirit.”  Reacting to the “technical marriage,” men troop to Gina’s house to proffer their applications, believing the vagabond (like the Biblical scapegoat), has wandered off with “chira” that killed their fellow warrior.

Tragedy! The killer malady the elders call “Chira” is AIDS—the killer the Luo aptly nickname “Ayaki”—I loot you. Gina soon develops loose morals and dispatches one man after another to his grave, their wives in tow. Tragic: Ayaki kills people and “chira,” with which it shares symptoms, gets the credit. Gina’s misleadingly healthy look, beauty, and longevity only add to the tragedy.

Felicia returns to Korondo Ridge amid the Ayaki epidemic in the land, but even the epidemic has not changed people‘s ways:, men still embrace polygamy; men still inherit sick widows, and sure, her Jim has married young Megan, capping his conquest over Joe Ochom the narrator. But as the Luo of old said, the ferocious buffalo provides the hide for a brave warrior’s shield—Jim dies holding a toxic jewel in his hands; leaving teaching lessons in vanity and immoderation.

Nelson Mandela Passes On

Nelson Mandela passes on this day December 5 2013 at age 95 Years. South Africa, Africa, the World loses a son, citizen, leader, voice, defender of the weak and oppressed.

The Wise One of Ramogiland 1

Here is a book chapter for those readers with selective tastes.

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1130347