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 What Is the What

The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
by Dave Eggers

"Valentino Achak Deng, real-life hero of this engrossing epic, was a refugee from the Sudanese civil war—the bloodbath before the current Darfur bloodbath—of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized memoir, Eggers makes him an icon of globalization. Separated from his family when Arab militia destroy his village, Valentino joins thousands of other 'Lost Boys,' beset by starvation, thirst and man-eating lions on their march to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where Valentino pieces together a new life. Eggers's limpid prose gives Valentino an unaffected, compelling voice and makes his narrative by turns harrowing, funny, bleak and lyrical. The result is a horrific account of the Sudanese tragedy, but also an emblematic saga of modernity — of the search for home and self in a world of unending upheaval." -- Publishers Weekly

Reviews, other books by the author from NoveList (Sonoma County Library card required for access from home) Author biographies from Biography In Context (Sonoma County Library card required for access from home) Interview with Dave Eggers from The Rumpus Valentino Achak Deng Foundation Find it in the Library: What Is the What Books by Dave Eggers Other books about the Lost Boys of Sudan