When he falls asleep, Mokhtar never knows if he will wake up again. Sometimes the neighborhood burns, sometimes bombs fly at dawn, sometimes the members of different tribes bring out their AK-47 rifles.

Although his parents, his friends, his business associates, all of whom have actually summoned Mokhtar not to leave California, he flew to Yemen. And thus in the war. What at first glance looks tired of life turns out to be devotion on the second. Because what keeps Mokhtar alive is the belief in its plan: finding the best coffee beans in the world. Only that would not be an easy task even without war.

Anyone familiar with coffee will have already wondered: Brazil, Vietnam, Ethiopia and India are considered big coffee exporters - not Yemen. Although legend has it that the first coffee beans were roasted in the country, the country is not even known coffee experts, certainly not for the best in the world. Mokhtar wants to change that - even though he barely drank a cup himself.

So it can not be the penchant for caffeine that intoxicates him. "The only thing the world knew about Yemen today was terrorism and drones," he says. Regret blows every word. Mokhtar wants to change that, that's the engine of his trade.

Tom Pilston / Panos Pictures / VISA

Author Dave Eggers

What US writer Dave Eggers describes in The Monk of Mocha is based on a true story. Therefore, the book is not a novel, the author explains the same on the first pages. It is a mix of portrait, non-fiction book and fighting script for humanistic entrepreneurship.

Because Mokhtar Alkhanshali, wearing "Make Coffee Not" t-shirts and straightening his hair, is not a self-centered Silicon Valley founder who risks his life for a start-up. But someone who wants to improve the world - and with it his own life. Eggers interviewed him for about a hundred hours over three years, following his footsteps to Djibouti, to Harar and to remote mountainous areas of Yemen.

The neo-liberal, sad core of the "American Dream"

What he distilled from it could be the prototype of the "American Dream". Just that Mokhtar does not realize his dream in America. And a devout Muslim is. The fact that Eggers launches the book in 2018 is, of course, a signal. US President Trump's words about the "Muslim Ban", the ban on entry for people from seven majority Muslim countries, including Yemen, are in your ears when you turn the pages. Eggers, it seems, wanted to prove to the president with this story how wrong he is with the hunt against Muslim migrants.

That the story comes along a bit lengthy and you occasionally have the feeling to read a Wikipedia entry about coffee production or the activist press release of a non-profit organization, you can forgive. Also, that some characters are introduced without any apparent reason and eventually disappear between the pages, one may overlook or attribute Eggers' principle to fictionalizing Mokhtar's story. That one continues to read is due to Mokhtar, the epitome of an underdog, and his suicide mission.

DISPLAY

Dave Eggers:
The monk of mocha

From the English by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann

Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 384 pages, 22 euros

Order at Amazon. Order from Thalia.

Egger's interpretation turns his journey into coming-of-age history. Because before Mokhtar flees the bombs in Sana'a, he bores himself as a porter of a noble skyscraper in San Francisco. The young adult from a problem area has no perspective, just debt. However, the more he learns about the home of his parents and grandparents and about the Yemeni coffee culture that has been forgotten, the more it electrifies him. That's what makes the story so worth reading. She is the better "American Dream".

Because it shows its neo-liberal, sad core: If you want to bring it to something and improve the existence of others, that of the poverty-stricken coffee farmers, for example, you are on your own. For Mokhtar there is no funding or help. There is only his plan. Where survival is a challenge, the project becomes more and more impossible.

Until the end, it remains exciting. Whether it is crushed in Yemen between Qaeda terrorists, Huthi rebels, pirates and corrupt politicians. Or if he comes out unscathed, with his dream and hundreds of kilos of coffee beans.