by Dave Eggers. It had been awhile since I read me some fiction. School does that to a man. Because my time is so limited it was hard to decide on what to read. I actually spent a week deciding, which seems ironic as I could have just read another book while i was evaluating my options. But I went with What is the What and I am happy I did.
I read Eggers' first book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and thought it quite a bit less than genius. But that was a long time ago and I was a pretty different person. What is the What is an autobiographical novel. It is fiction, but it is not fiction. What results is more realistic than any historical account could possibly be. It captures the story of one (of thousands) Valantino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee whose home and life was devastated by the long running civil war. The Darfur region gets all the press these days, but growing up in southern Sudan was (and maybe still is) a nightmare of its own kind. Deng was one of the "Lost Boys," children who watch their parents get murdered and then flee, walking across the entire width of Sudan to Ethiopia where they eventually settle. Its an amazingly horrific story and any summary I could give would be truly pathetic. All I'm going to say is, read it. A glimpse of this man's life is enough to know how beautifully difficult life can be. What people survived and what people endure.
All of the proceeds of the book go to a foundation dedicated to restore villages in southern Sudan and give refugees a chance to go to college. Buy it here.
