[ book tip by Thomas Rigler ] What Is the What is a stunning memoir of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee from Southern Sudan and one of the country's generation of 'Lost Boys'. Leaving his village without parents or family after it's being attacked and burnt to the ground by government troops in 1988 when he is less than 10 years old, Valentino walks across war-torn Sudan to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, almost starving and dying of dehydration in the process.

When no longer welcome there, thousands of refugees walk again to the Karthoum camp in Kenya where Valentino finds something resembling life as we know it: food, schooling, friends and an adoptive family.

After 13 years in camps, Valentino is accepted into a UN / US program that relocates 'Lost Boys' from Sudan to the US, and in 2001 he emigrates to Atlanta, Georgia where his struggles continue.

Dave Eggers, the author of the equally breathtaking A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the founder/publisher of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and several non-profits dedicated to reading and writing programs for the young, continues here his remarkable approach to everyday stories of pain and suffering. No idea how he does it: while retelling this story of a holocaust taking place under our very eyes, Valentino's tales pile suffering upon suffering without completely wiping us out emotionally. Instead we manage to see the humanity in all of it, ugly and beautiful, desperate and hopeful as it is.

In that, Dave Eggers is clearly a master and the promise of Staggering Genius has been more than fulfilled. McSweeney's also established a foundation in Valentino's name that will receive all proceeds from this novel.

[ book info ] Eggers, Dave: What Is the What. McSweeney, October 25, 2006 . ISBN: 978-193241664.