Cheryl's Reviews > What Is the What

"What is the What is the soulful account of my life: from the time I was separated from my family in Marial Bai to the thirteen years I spent in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps, to my encounter with vibrant Western cultures beginning in Atlanta, to the generosity and the challenges that I encountered elsewhere," Valentino Achak Deng writes.

Dave Eggers did such a great job bringing Deng's story to life, that I enjoyed this book even more than I did Egger's memoir. This is a novel that is "historically accurate" and "all of the major events in the book are true," Deng writes.

The voice is clearly that of a Sudanese man, the descriptions vivid, the story-telling riveting. The story starts in the present with a dramatic beginning, Deng is a refugee in America, alone in his sparsely furnished apartment, when robbers enter his apartment and tie him up. As he lays there helplessly, the book veers to retrospective narration when Deng goes into backstory about his childhood in Sudan--how ironic it is, he thinks, that he, a former soldier, is being attacked in his own home. He views his attackers with scorn and something akin to pity because of what he perceives to be their naiveté. The prose gets a bit lengthy at times, yet includes great introspection from the narrator who also seems to recount meaningful historical data that could only have been obtained from someone who has "been there, done that." Towards the end, you see him come to terms with his experiences, the mistakes he made as he grew older and wiser, and the plans he has for improving his life.

At a time when it was so important to obtain the story of the infamous "Lost Boys," perhaps this book is a crucial addendum.