The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change

In farming communities in Kenya, there is a period of time every year called wanjala, when food is scarce and hunger is rampant. In his most recent book "The Last Hunger Season," Roger Thurow tells the story of four farmers in western Kenya, and their struggles with hunger and poverty, while they try out a program supplied by the NGO One Acre, that brings hope of eliminating the “Hunger Season” for good.

This hour on Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with Roger Thurow about the families he talked with when writing his book.

Thurow is speaking and will be signing books at the Illini Union Bookstore's "Author's Corner," at 809 S. Wright Street in Champaign today at 12:00 p.m. and will also be speaking at 3:00 today at the Spurlock Museum where he will show a preview of the documentary being made based on his work "The Hunger Season."

In addition to writing "The Last Hunger season," Thurow also co-wrote a series of stories on famine in Africa that was a finalist for  Pulizer Prize in International Reporting in 2003. This first book, "Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty," written with Scott Kilman, won the Harry Chapin Why Hunger book award and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.