Cultural Expression and Grassroots Development: Cases from Latin America and the Caribbean

by Charles David Kleymeyer (Editor)

Book by

293 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Charles David Kleymeyer won two national prizes for fiction in 2014. He is also an applied sociologist with a lifetime of experience serving organizations and communities of low-income ethnic groups throughout the Americas. He has published short stories and poetry, and during a Fulbright Fellowship in highland Ecuador, he produced a trilingual collection of documentary short stories—in Spanish, Quechua, and English. Over the past decade, he has published six short stories from the novel’s manuscript, one of which won an Award of Merit for a Seasonal Article, from the Associated Church Press. His professional publications include four books and more than thirty articles.
Kleymeyer majored in Creative Writing at Stanford University where he studied under Wallace Stegner. He served in the Peace Corps in Peru, and subsequently earned an M.S. in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Wisconsin. His career in international grassroots development is still ongoing.
For five decades, the author has been a performing storyteller at folk festivals, spiritual retreats, Indian reservations, and on radio and television. This avocation has helped shape his narrative voice, while his cross-cultural international development work has molded his philosophical and ethical outlook. The life lessons and oral history techniques he learned from Indians and Blacks throughout the Americas have informed his vision of the teaching style and humanistic practices of the historical Jesus and other New Testament figures. These lessons of love, compassionate service, and forgiveness have been amplified by his long-time spiritual commitment to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and his novel is intended for readers of all ages and spiritual backgrounds.
The author is also the father of two adult children and a pre-teen—all of whom have served as his fiction editors. He also visits classrooms and libraries where he presents a self-scripted performance—in first-person and authentic costume—of Abraham Lincoln telling stories of his Indiana childhood and how it impacted him as a father and President.
YESHU is a book written by a storyteller about storytellers, including a Jewish village carpenter, one of the premier tellers of all times.