Yaya's Story

When Paul Stoller was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2001 he was understandably despondent. But as odd as it may seem, the presence of cancer in his body opened up a new pathway to personal growth and development. The nature of that pathway is illuminated in this new book through a combined life history and memoir of Yaya (El Hajj Yaya Hamidou), a Songhay trader whom Stoller befriended during his fieldwork in the Malcolm Shabazz Market in Harlem. The book tells the tale of two restless, world-traveling men whose lives converge, sparking mutual understanding regarding key emotions that define our humanity. Just as Stoller has "sat” with African masters (of spirit possession, healing, and commerce), he invites his readers to sit with him to learn lessons about the lifelong quest for well-being, for being comfortable in one’s skin and in the world. He describes the elusiveness of well-being, and the social nature of the quest. The metaphor of pathways makes the combination of socio-cultural context and unexpected contingencies vivid. We not only see how different are the lives of West African art traders and North American academics, but we come to understand how the witnessing across cultural divides of the uncertainties of illness and identity create spaces where wellbeing can emerge. Using concepts of wellbeing learned from his Songhay friends and teachers, Stoller realizes that wealth in commerce is only one half of wellbeing; the other half has to do with the cultivation of wholesome relations with others who are directly a part of what makes life meaningful. In the end, it is the trust one is able to cultivate with family networks and friends--what Stoller calls "wealth-in-people” --that allows each of us to generate wellbeing, to cultivate wholesomeness in our own lives by the way we comport ourselves in social exchanges with others, be they life-giving or life-taking. This is a remarkable book--part ethnography, part biography, part autobiography, and altogether quite excellent storytelling.