What is the What by Dave Eggers
Reviewed by Hannah Harlow
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Valentino Achak Deng is a real person, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, now living in Atlanta. Dave Eggers, founder of the McSweeney’s publishing company and bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, befriended Deng, had many conversations with him, and assumed his voice in order to write What is the What, a fictional biography that hews close to Deng’s true story, but excuses the author to rearrange events for dramatic effect and excuses any inaccuracies in Deng’s memories. But the fictionalization of Deng’s story does not make it any less harrowing or less affecting. His is a heartbreaking journey of loss, and the search for family, love, and a safety he will never find, not even in America. During the Second Sudanese Civil War, Valentino’s village in southern Sudan was raided and destroyed and he escaped alone into the night. Joining a band of some 200 other orphaned boys all under the age of 14, save for their leader, a former schoolteacher in his 20s, Valentino trekked across the country bound for a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Along the way he watched boys die of fatigue, hunger, dehydration, attacks by lions, and attacks by military on either side of the war. He survives this trek across the desert from a mixture of determination and a little luck. |
After a temporary stay in Ethiopia, the boys are forced to walk again, this time to another refugee camp in Kenya. Valentino remains in this camp for years—as an orphan he must fight for his fair share of what the camp has to offer. Deng’s intelligence and persistence win him a coveted job with a Japanese aid worker. He studies hard to win the affections of a girl. He joins the theater group to get close to another girl and they win a trip to Nairobi to perform their play. These are Deng’s triumphs, but for every triumph there are many tragedies to endure.
Finally he is chosen for resettlement in Atlanta. When he arrives with a group of Sudanese men like himself, he relies on a sponsor to learn how to live in America. But even here, he is targeted for being Sudanese and robbed at gunpoint.
What is the What is an amazing portrayal of the refugee experience, of a nation at war with itself, and of Rwanda’s neighbor. It is a story of survival, told with humor and compassion.
Valentino calls himself unlucky; the people around him, especially the people he loves, tend to die. But Valentino is still alive and still surviving and he still has hope. His hope is infectious.
