Showing results for "odyssey" in Cultural & Regional

Here is the gritty, powerful story of Thomas Sowell's life-long education in the school of hard knocks, a journey that took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.

Question: What do you do when the kitchen wall collapses into the vat of beans being cooked for a horde of hungry schoolboys? Answer: You serve it up anyway! Why let a few lumps of clay and the odd metal screw spoil a decent meal? When Bunmi Asaolu arrived at the grand gates of St. John/Mary's Unity Secondary School (SAJOMACO) as a first-year student, you'd be forgiven for assuming he was swapping life on the serene university campus he grew up on for another of equal civility. Wrong! Behind the gates of SAJOMACO lay a world of contradictions.

In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope.

Kamil Idris, a man proud of his nomad ancestry, survived child labor in darkened factories, boyhood journeys to Cairo balanced on the top of trains, hazardous treks to Europe in his teens, capture and death threats from piratical Nile fishermen who thought he was an evil spirit or djinn, and even being stranded in the ferocious heat of the Nubian desert.

Growing up on the streets of East L.A., Luis Rodriguez narrowly escaped a serious jail term and then struggled to overcome his powerful addiction to heroin and alcohol. Eventually, Rodriguez embarked on a career as a successful journalist and a highly regarded poet. In It Calls You Back, Rodriguez describes with heartbreaking honesty his challenges as a husband and a father and his difficulty leaving his criminal past completely behind.

This is an odyssey about failure, rejection, redemption, and triumph where I had to rise above religion and embrace God's true gift, a relationship. My path might be different than yours, but our barriers are all the same. I chased successes that were based off of manmade ideals, so I sought money, fame, acceptance, love, and respect from others, instead of probing inward and seeing my hidden self.

In this revealing and beautifully written memoir, Mark Obama Ndesandjo recounts his complex relationship with his older half brother, President Barack Obama, including their first meeting in Kenya over 20 years ago. The book also offers the author's inspiring personal story about identity and multiculturalism.

Der jüdische Humor und seine Witze vermengen sich in Erwin Javors Erzählung wie ein Mosaik mit Geschichte und persönlichen Geschichten aus Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft. Es ist ein Buch über ostjüdische Identität im Lauf der Generationen: subjektiv, ironisch, kritisch, lachend, weinend und liebevoll. Eine jüdische Familiengeschichte der ganz besonderen Art. Vom Schtetl nach Budapest, von Budapest nach Wien und nach Israel führt Erwin Javors Zeitreise. Sie ist eine Liebeserklärung an seine Eltern, deren Geschichten und Erzählungen über eine heute verlorene Welt ihn geprägt haben. Das Schtetl ist, mit Sehnsucht verklärt, im kollektiven jüdischen Gedächtnis immer noch präsent. Doch diese versunkene Welt war auch hart und erbarmungslos, und gerade daraus entstand der jüdische Humor. Was ist an ihm so besonders, warum bringt er uns zum Lachen? Weil hinter jeder guten Pointe, wie bei jeder guten Komödie, immer auch ein Stück Tragödie steht.