num_pages: 176
description: Yayas Story is a book about Yaya Harouna  a Songhay trader originally from Niger who found a path to America. It is also a book about Paul Stollerits authoran American anthropologist who found his own path to Africa. Separated by ethnicity language profession and culture these two mens lives couldnt be more different. But when they were both threatened by a grave illnesscancerthose differences evaporated and the two were brought to profound existential convergence a deep camaraderie in the face of the most harrowing of circumstances. Yayas Story is that story. Harouna and Stoller would meet in Harlem at a bustling African market where Harouna built a life as an African art trader and Stoller was conducting research. Moving from Belayara in Niger to Silver Spring Maryland and from the Peace Corps to fieldwork to New York Stoller recounts their separate lives and how the threat posed by cancer brought them a new profound and shared sense of meaning. Combining memoir ethnography and philosophy through a series of interconnected narratives he tells a story of remarkable friendship and the quest for well-being. Its a story of difference and unity of illness and health a lyrical reflection on human resiliency and the shoulders we lean on. 
language: English
title: Yaya's Story: The Quest for Well-Being in the World
publisher: University of Chicago Press