More About the Author
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.
