” Catalyst Press is an independent publishing company founded in 2017 with the aim of bringing diverse voices from around the world to a wider audience. It focuses on Africa and includes fiction, memoirs, travel, science, and books for young readers. This is the first of their publications that I have read and I loved it. This is a beautifully written, poetic memoir.
Caroline Kurtz, an author based
The books are described as ” rich with honesty, vulnerability, and most of all, hope and love as she explores her life between two worlds in A ROAD CALLED DOWN ON BOTH SIDES, and working for peace in S. Sudan even as her personal life grows more unstable in TODAY IS TOMORROW. Both are out now and available through your favorite bookseller.” You can select
Alan Rose, a great interviewer, got Caroline talking about her unusual childhood as an Oregonian in Africa, and about the writing of her books set in Ethiopia and South Sudan. The interview is full of interesting stories and bits of history. Enjoy!
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In the eyes of some Christians, Western missionaries in Africa are often regarded as holy martyrs who must Christianize the dark continent at all costs. In the eyes of secular skeptics, missionaries are usually the destroyers of indigenous cultures and irrational proselytizers who want to convert people to the Christian faith against their will.
Both of these divergent views
Photo by Aaron Burden via Unsplas
LOUISVILLE — On Monday the Presbyterian Writers Guild celebrated the
With my husband and sons, I moved mid-career to Nairobi, Kenya from a teaching job in Ethiopia. We’d been asked to work for four years with Nuers, the second largest ethnic group in South Sudan. It was a misbegotten and doomed assignment. Trauma from the Sudanese civil war, now in its thirtieth year, pressed on everyone, always, and everywhere. Corruption ruled.
Caroline Kurtz Recommends Maaza Mengiste, Asfa-Wossen Asserate, Dinaw Mengestu, and More – By Caroline Kurtz
The first home I remember well sat on the edge of a remote escarpment in mountainous Ethiopia. Ethiopians there accepted me, bemused and curious about my strange hair that had been bleached by the tropical highland sun. When I returned to the US, I spoke as a native,
Caroline Kurtz’s book is real, raw and truly a sacred story of who she is and how God has called her since childhood. This is her second memoir, as she continues to process her ministry, cross-cultural identity, family connections and deep desire to make a difference in the world. As a mother, mission co-worker and minister, I could relate. I have three daughters who sometimes feel
On April 5, 2022, Annie Bloom’s welcomed back local author Caroline Kurtz for a livestream reading from her new memoir, Today Is Tomorrow. Caroline was in conversation with her sister, children’s author Jane Kurtz.
“When she lost her husband to cancer, (Caroline) made a solo hike along the rugged Oregon coast. . . . Her hike enabled her to shed her old identity and find a new one. . . . This is a beautifully written, poetic memoir.”
“Real, raw and truly a sacred story… Kurtz shares her personal vulnerability with readers, creating not just an intellectual exploration of cross-cultural differences, but rather a heart-wrenching witness of what it means to give one’s whole life…not knowing whether one’s hopes or intentions will be realized.”
“I finished this gripping story in a couple sittings because I wanted to know, badly, what would come of this remarkable girl raised on a ridge between two very different worlds. […] This is a lyrical rendering of life lived on a fault-line between cultures, where accepted beliefs grind together and sometimes collapse.”
“Walking the Tideline invites us to join Caroline Kurtz on an intimate journey of self-discovery along the Oregon Coast Trail in the wake of her husband’s passing. Written with warmth and honesty, we experience the beauty, exhaustion, and healing of a sandy pilgrimage anchored in grief, yet longing for release. A story brave in its revelations, and satisfying in its insights, it’s a book that stays with you.”
” I pretty much inhaled this book. I read it fast because of the sustained tension in both the domestic and the professional sides of your life. And you present such a clear evocation of exactly what it was like to be in the scenes you describe–the vividness and specificity took my breath away! ”
“Today is Tomorrow” is indeed an incredible statement of hope for all who would like to see the light at the end of the tunnel in South Sudan.
“A lot of your memoir resonated with how I have interpreted my life between my two homes, how I have interacted with religion, and the place/value Ethiopia has in my present American life. ”
“Caroline Kurtz takes her readers on a journey from Oregon, to Maji, Ethiopia, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Pasadena, California and back to Ethiopia and America with beautiful description, emotional moments, and an enduring love for the people of Ethiopia.”
“This beautifully written book is a wonderful read. The story unlocks the power a place and its people can have in helping us become who we should be. I highly recommend this for anyone.”
“If you ever dreamed of adventure thrust upon you at an early age, Caroline Kurtz will tell you all about what happens in this story full of lovely detail starting with her arrival at age five in Maji, Ethiopia with her missionary parents.”
” I started to dread the end as I could not have enough of your reflections on several themes about our common experiences of belonging to both Ethiopia and the USA. ”
” I loved this memoir by Caroline Kurtz. It is a beautifully written account of growing up In two countries that are worlds apart, Ethiopia and the United States. For me, one of the best qualities of the story is that it is not sugar-coated. ”
“A very interesting memoir worth sharing with a global audience.”
Dr. Worku L. Mulat is tge President of Ethiopian Institute of Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation, honorary professor at Wollo University and research associate at The Tree Foundation
“A unique, historically informed perspective on a fascinating nation.”
“My African friends who read Today Is Tomorrow may wonder if such experiences of an American woman can be real. My American friends who read this may wonder if such experiences in Sudan can be anything but fiction. But knowing Caroline in America and working side-by-side with her in Sudan, I can say that the realities she describes with such sublime word pictures are all real. [Kurtz] is an artistic wordsmith.”
“Hugely anthropological, historical, cultural and Spiritual.”
Bishop Dr. Arkanjelo Wani Lemi is the Former Presiding Bishop of Africa Inland Church, Former Chair of the South Sudan Council of Churches, Chair of the Technical Committee for establishment of the Truth, Reconciliation and Healing Commission
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