First, a brief introduction about myself. I am a Ugandan Asian who was exiled from Idi Amin's reign of terror in 1972. I became an American citizen in 1979 and now live in Thailand. While doing humanitarian work in five of the seven continents of our globe over the last three decades, I have also been writing a memoir trilogy that is now completed.. The US-published first volume " A Chameleon's Tale - True Tales of a Global Refugee" was chosen as a finalist for a PEN book award in New York in 2007. My contract with my current publisher has now expired and I have exclusive copyright of the firs... View More »

First, a brief introduction about myself. I am a Ugandan Asian who was exiled from Idi Amin's reign of terror in 1972. I became an American citizen in 1979 and now live in Thailand. While doing humanitarian work in five of the seven continents of our globe over the last three decades, I have also been writing a memoir trilogy that is now completed.. The US-published first volume " A Chameleon's Tale - True Tales of a Global Refugee" was chosen as a finalist for a PEN book award in New York in 2007. My contract with my current publisher has now expired and I have exclusive copyright of the first volume. Supplementary details of international reviews, book excerpts and interviews are available on my book website www.mo-tejani.com «View Less

The second volume- “Global Crossroads – Riding the Cultural Wildebeest - of nine short stories including two mini-novellas has recently gone through its final edit and is the one I am interested in getting published. Included with this query letter is a book synopsisbelow for your review. I will be glad to send you sample chapters once I hear back from you at this email address.
It just so happens that I will be in New York City from May 18th thru May 31st '09 and will also be attending Book Expo America from May 28- 31st. Will a representative of your company be taking part as well? If so, please send contact details.

I hope to hear back from you soon. I will leaving from New Cork city on May 31st back to Thailand where I live. My cell phone number (only while in the US) is 3472687284.

GLOBAL CROSSROADS: RIDING THE CULTURAL WILDEBEEST
by Mo Tejani... View More »

The second volume- “Global Crossroads – Riding the Cultural Wildebeest - of nine short stories including two mini-novellas has recently gone through its final edit and is the one I am interested in getting published. Included with this query letter is a book synopsisbelow for your review. I will be glad to send you sample chapters once I hear back from you at this email address.
It just so happens that I will be in New York City from May 18th thru May 31st '09 and will also be attending Book Expo America from May 28- 31st. Will a representative of your company be taking part as well? If so, please send contact details.

I hope to hear back from you soon. I will leaving from New Cork city on May 31st back to Thailand where I live. My cell phone number (only while in the US) is 3472687284.

GLOBAL CROSSROADS: RIDING THE CULTURAL WILDEBEEST
by Mo Tejani

Synopsis: A die-hard traveler reflects on the myriad cross-cultural conflicts and challenges he has faced in his travels over five continents. From Tanzania to Thailand, Argentina to Australia, Peru to the Philippines, this collection of short stories not only explores the dramatic and often surprising differences between the many people that exist on our planet, but also raises questions about the values we hold, our refusal to change them, the conflicts those values create, and the ensuing violence they generate. The reader will be occasionally shocked and often amused by the rich panorama of experiences, insights, and revelations that this veteran traveler has to offer.

STORIES…

Part One: Africa Remembered
Red Dust of Singida: Returning to Africa after a quarter of a century, while on a bus journey this traveler discovers the amazing brutality that people in power can inflict on the poor and the needy and how they relate to the recent history of the continent’s social problems.

Fruits of Childhood: Reminiscing on a childhood spent in Uganda, the exiled narrator wanders through the jungles of Thailand in search of symbols that will take him back.

The Beast Within: From studying Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies during his student days in Kampala to teaching it in northern Thailand forty years later, the author exposes the “beast” in all of us, as the clash of civilizations haunts the classroom and our globalized planet alike.

Part Two: Culture Clash
T-Shirt Tango: Roaming through Guatemala, the Philippines, Bolivia, China, and America, this global vagabond explores the world of T-shirts, the people that sell them, the crusaders that wear them, and the clash of values the T-shirt sayings elicit in those countries.

Joggers’ Jamboree: All hell breaks loose as the Hash Harriers Club chooses the normally peaceful city of Chiang Mai to hold their bi-annual joggers’ bash with revelers from seventy-four countries. Looking more like a costume ball for misfits of the world, it is alcoholic mayhem from start to finish. Will the people of Chiang Mai ever recover?

Dog Karma: Exploring the theme of human relationships with dogs, this nomadic wanderer’s adventures bring him into contact with varying and often colliding view points about man’s best friend in six different countries.


Part Three: Backpacker Blues
Latin Cariño: In his quest to attend the 1978 World Soccer Cup in Argentina, this football fan embarks on a two-year overland trip from Southern California to Argentina, and explores the theme of the kindness shown to him by strangers in life-threatening situations arising from theft, sickness, being jailed, and running out of money.

The Hedonists of OZ: After four decades of travel, this middle-aged sojourner finds himself on a long journey from Great Ocean Road to Cairns along the Eastern Australian Coast, caught up with a much younger backpacker crowd with a travel style diametrically opposed to the one he’s become so good at. In urban cities, on forlorn islands, and on dives in the Great Barrier Reef, he repeatedly runs into comic and tragic clashes with a new generation of travelers who think they know it all.


About the author: Born in Tanzania to Indian parents, Mo Tejani lived in Uganda for eighteen years of his life. Along with 80,000 other Asians, he and his family were forced to flee Idi Amin’s reign of terror in 1972. As a refugee, he first fled to England and then to America of the late sixties and early seventies. Fluent in eight languages, he has spent twenty years working in refugee camps in Asia, training rural farmers in Central America, educating First Nation tribes in Canada, and coordinating poverty reduction projects in Africa.

He currently resides in Chiang Mai, Thailand and writes feature articles, poetry, and essays for various magazines worldwide. A Chameleon’s Tale: True Stories of a Global Refugee, the first volume of his travel memoirs was chosen as a finalist for a PEN Book Award in 2007. «View Less