Sundiata Alaye

Sweet Cornbread and Hot Green Tea Sundiata Alaye

Beloved for his spiritual wisdom and amazing insight into the human experience Sundiata delivers the message of learning, loving, teaching and healing in a different voice than we've become used to in his first work of fiction. His writing speaks to our individual pain and ultimate and collective triumphs touching hearts, soul, and senses in ways we can relate and ways that relate to us. There is familiarity in this collection of short stories, prose, letters, and poetry that stands free and unashamed in the tones and voices, thoughts, and actions of the characters that allows us to connect in our own voice. Sundiata gives us permission to face the gut-wrenching truth even when we cannot about who we are, who we are not, where we've been, what we've been through, and where we hope to go. In "Wanting - The Art of Desire", our deepest longings and desires for love and love's passion are explored and exposed. This collection speaks to our desires to love and be loved, to be accepted and thought of and what we do with this and unresolved passion unresolved. "Agape - The Art of Love" represents the highest form of love; the freeing overflowing redemptive love that we feel when we love without condition but love as God loves. These are the stories that speak to the euphoric feelings of finding, falling, being in and celebrating love. "Struggle - The Art of Survival" harnesses our capacity to love and the necessity of mindfulness to keep centered, focused, and in love's presence when there is a wind of change as we rise from the ashes of smoldering identity, self-acceptance and self-love, abusive relationships, breakups in relationships and breakups in our souls. While there is no more of a painful experience in all of the human experience than the loss of a loved one "Journeys - The Art of Loss" walks us through the grieving process of both physical and symbolic loss to find healing and gentle orientation in life when we lose loved ones and ourselves, and the lessons we are to take with us from these experiences. It is said that when an Elder dies in Africa it is as though an entire library has burned down. The Griots tells rhythmic stories of our rich history and even about our plain ole' lives but no matter what the stories are told! "Storytelling - "The Art of the Griot" tells stories, period! Overflowing with wisdom and humor these engaging and love-affirming stories and anecdotes are another testament to loving, learning, teaching, and healing and help us to appreciate that our life experiences all have happy endings if we chose them to be in this serious, funny, witty, thought provoking, love-affirming and sometimes outrages yet relatable work.