What Is the What

Dave Eggers

Feb 2009 · Vintage Canada

About this ebook

What Is the What is the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee in war-ravaged southern Sudan who flees from his village in the mid-1980s and becomes one of the so-called Lost Boys. Valentino’s travels bring him in contact with enemy soldiers, with liberation rebels, with hyenas and lions, with disease and starvation, and with deadly murahaleen (militias on horseback)–the same sort who currently terrorize Darfur. Eventually Deng is resettled in the United States with almost 4000 other young Sudanese men, and a very different struggle begins. Based closely on true experiences, What Is the What is heartbreaking and arresting, filled with adventure, suspense, tragedy, and, finally, triumph.

Ratings and reviews

definitely moves to to the shelf of most influential books in my life; i must have marked over 50 passages throughout this story- a journey i can hardly believe is real and experiences that make me want to try my hardest to be mindful of the ease with which things have come to me in life. images of crossing the rivers and the desert to perceived safety and the stark contrast of america's challenges will be in my mind forever. i am a big fan of dave eggers- but this is amazing writing, i was not distracted by his voice as story teller. in truth a hard read in places, the content and experiences are real and the swell of emotion in this part of sudan's history is impossible to ignore. i read this book slowly; to ingest what was shared and because i didn't want to get to the end of the story. "mornings were the time he worried the most. Every morning, he said, he was leapt upon by the snarling hyenas of his many responsibilities"

About the author

DAVE EGGERS is an award-winning and bestselling author of many books, including The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, The Captain and the Glory, and The Parade. He is founder of McSweeney’s, the San Francisco independent publishing company. He is co-founder of 826 National, the network of youth writing centers that has inspired dozens of other centers worldwide, and Voice of Witness, which advances human rights through oral history publishing and education. Eggers is winner of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. www.daveeggers.net