What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng; A Novel

Dave Eggers

ISBN 10: 1602832625 ISBN 13: 9781602832626

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing, 2007

Synopsis

In a heartrending and astonishing novel, Dave Eggers illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States. We follow his life as hes driven from his home as a boy and walks, with thousands of orphans, to Ethiopia, where he finds safetyfor a time. Valentinos travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government soldiers, Janjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvationand a string of unexpected romances. Ultimately, Valentino finds safety in Kenya and, just after the millennium, is finally resettled in the United States, from where this novel is narrated. In this book, written with expansive humanity and surprising humor, we come to understand the nature of the conflicts in Sudan, the refugee experience in America, the dreams of the Dinka people, and the challenge one indomitable man faces in a world collapsing around him.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Dave Eggers has done something remarkable with this book. He has managed to cross many barriers both real and artificial to tell the story of one man's tragedy and triumph in a way that emphasizes his simple humanity above the drama of his terrible situation. It is a book that shows there is no reason why geographical and cultural divides should prevent us from attempting to understand each other as citizens of this world."
--UZODINMA IWEALA, author of Beasts of No Nation

"I cannot recall the last time I was this moved by a novel. What is the What is that rare book that truly deserves the overused and scarcely warranted moniker of `sprawling epic.' Told with humor, humanity, and bottomless compassion for his subject, one Valentino Achak Deng, Eggers shows us the hardships, disillusions, and hopes of the long suffering people of southern Sudan. This is the story of one boy's astonishing capacity to endure atrocity after atrocity and yet refuse to abandon decency, kindness, and hope for home and acceptance. It is impossible to read this book and not be humbled, enlightened, transformed. I believe I will never forget Valentino Achak Deng."
--KHALED HOSSEINI, author of The Kite Runner

"What is the What is a novel that possesses the best qualities of a documentary film: the conviction of truthfulness, and the constant reminder of the arbitrariness of fate, for worse and for better. By setting his story of African annihilation and survival as a story of American immigration, Eggers ensures that it belongs to us all, as it must."
--PHILIP GOUREVITCH, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

"I have been interacting with the Lost Boys since the late 1980s, from the time they were first displaced in Sudan to their arrival in the United States. I thought I had heard and seen it all. But reading Valentino's story has touched emotions in me I didn't even know I had. Dave Eggers tells the story of Sudan through Valentino's eyes, but he also elucidates the best and worst of our common humanity."
--JOHN PRENDERGAST, International Crisis Group

About the Author

Dave Eggers won the 2009 Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation. He is the author of What Is the What, among other books. He is the editor for McSweeney's, an independent publishing house in San Francisco, and is the cofounder of 826 National, a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for youth with locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, Ann Arbor, and Seattle. With his high school students he edits The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a yearly anthology, and with his brother Toph he cowrites the Haggis-on-Whey series of semi-informative books, which includes Giraffes? Giraffes!, Animals of the Ocean (in Particular the Giant Squid), and Cold Fusion.

Dion Graham, from HBO's The Wire, also narrates The First 48 on A&E. An Audie Award winner and critically acclaimed actor and narrator, he has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. His performances have been praised as thoughtful and compelling, vivid and full of life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1602832625
• ISBN 13: 9781602832626
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 17