Book Review - "What is the What"

If you had the chance to look into a person’s soul, their past, would you want to remember what you see? In the case of Valentino Achak Deng, you would probably try to forget, but he must live with the memories every day of his life. In the novel What is the What by Dave Eggers, the story of a boy ripped from his family and home in war-torn Sudan is eloquently told. While this is a work of fiction, it is also the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. Having started his rough journey so early in life, much of the conversations and detail of events that Valentino witnessed had to be improvised for the sake of literary fluency.

This book follows Valentino, whose given name was Achak Achak, from his village in Marial Bai to the 13 years he spent in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps and finally to Atlanta, Georgia, the latest stop on his journey. As one of the Lost Boys, he walked across Sudan’s harsh landscapes with thousands of other boys in search of a safe haven after his village was raided and destroyed, watching those around him die of exhaustion, diseases, and even in the jaws of wild beasts. He often went days without food, water, or shelter, and when food was available the portions were meager. Not knowing the fate of his family and having little hope of ever returning to his village, Valentino struggled with his will to live, and even attempted to take his own life. He eventually came to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya which quickly grew to a population in the tens of thousands. It was in Kakuma that he spent his last ten years in Sudan before being “resettled” in the United States, where he lives today.

The purpose of What is the What is perhaps the most important thing to remember after reading it. In Valentino’s own words, “this book was born out of the desire on the part of myself and the author to reach out to others to help them understand the atrocities many successive governments of Sudan committed before and during the civil war.” It is imperative that as members of the human society we realize the atrocities that are going on around the world and have an understanding that those we meet in our everyday lives could very well have stories similar to Valentino’s. When you have a bad day or someone does something to harm you, remember the story of the boy who spent the majority of his life in situations you could scarcely imagine, but to this day has the strength to say, “even when my hours were darkest, I believed that some day I could share my experiences with readers, so as to prevent the same horrors from repeating themselves. This book is a form of struggle, and it keeps my spirit alive to struggle. To struggle is to strengthen my faith, my hope, and my belief in humanity.”

To learn more, visit the Valentino Achak Deng website.