Green Panda Press announces the forthcoming title merging the life-story of Akol Ayii with history of Southern Sudan and the American experience:
Sleeping with the Sun in His Eyes:A Lost Boy at Home In the World by Akol Ayii Madut & Bree
(Scroll down for an excerpt from the book!)
All publishing costs will be raised thru pre-sales and donations. A portion of the sales will go towards getting much-needed water to Southern Sudan. For more information email greenpandapress@gmail.com
To pre-order, fill out the attached form and mail to Green Panda Press
3174 Berkshire Rd. Cleve. Hts., OH 44118 --Be sure to include an email address to be notified as the book is sent to the printer, released to the public, and to learn of all pertaining events!
The book is $15.00 If you would like it shipped an additional $3.00 charge will apply. Cash/checks/credit cards are acceptable forms of payment, however to pay by credit card, you will need to opt for shipping, or pick up your book at Mac's Backs Books on Coventry, located in Cleveland Heights at 1820 Coventry Road, OH 44118. Your credit card will be charged when the book goes to print. All checks will be deposited within five days of receipt.
**If all monies are raised in time, the book will be out January 1, 2010 (The birthday given to Akol and other Lost Boys of Sudan when they came to America).
**If you would like to be listed as a Patron on the Acknowledgments page in the book please make a donation of $35.00 or more, for which you will receive a signed copy shipped immediately upon arrival from the printer. Presales/Patron Deadline 10/25/09
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please print clearly
I want to buy a book!
Name_____________________________
email_____________________________
mailing address____________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
payment enclosed yes__ no__
Credit card number with expiry:
__________________________________
I want my book shipped _____
I will pick up my book at Mac's Backs____
I know the author(s) and will get my book
from Akol/Bree____
Make checks payable to Green Panda Press
3174 Berkshire, Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Akol first arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, and stepped off the plane what he saw was everywhere wheat flour. He knew before he came here most American people had plenty to eat. Still he was truly amazed to discover such surplus. Here, he marveled, people left their wheat flour to just sit in great piles everywhere on the ground.
Akol wondered if they had run out of the sacks used for holding the flour.
A white woman was nearby working for the airport. He went to her and leant in, to conspire in English somewhat wanting:
“I have never seen so much flour. We have people who are starve in my home country. Why don’t somebody send some wheat flour back to there?”
“Welcome to America,” the woman smiled her brightest at him.
Akol couldn’t wait to get outside. Immediately he knelt down to take some of the wheat flour in his hands. The flour was freezing cold! It began to melt away down through his very grip, making everything wet and cold. His hands, even his knees were wet.
Brrrr! He dropped the melting flour to the ground. This place was unreal. Here in this new city, as it was in a desert mirage, the hulking piles of food disappeared at the touch.
I will be getting used to this and more, he told himself.
He went to join up with his entourage: the local director of Catholic Charities, a case-worker, and a native-speaker—a woman who turned out to be his sister were among those who escorted the second Sudanese Lost Boy into cold Cleveland.
999
Poem for Certain Lost Boys
by Bree
at home our mothers
ground the food for everybody
to eat
here we are dishwashers
we grind the food
in great disposals
*
