McSweeney’s, 2006, 475 pp., $26, www.mcsweeneys.net
Eggers achieved critical acclaim and widespread fame with his stunning 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Now the literary voice of a generation is back with this gripping, true-life tale of a Lost Boy of Sudan.
The Lost Boys were an estimated 17,000 young boys displaced by civil war in Sudan in the late 1980s. Many survived a journey through Ethiopia and refugee camps in Kenya.
Valentino Achak Deng, the subject of Eggers’ book, was relocated to Atlanta, where he studies at a community college (when he’s not being robbed or harassed by petty criminals).
Beautifully written and fast-paced, What Is the What transports readers into a world of chaos, conflict, and human triumph.
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Review by: Pat Angelo, freelance writer, Denver, Colorado.
