I was captivated by What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers, which is based on the real life story of a Sudanese refugee forced to flee his village in the Second Sudanese Civil War. It’s the story of how Valentino escapes, meets up with groups of other fleeing boys, and treks across Sudan to refugee camps in Ethiopia and then Kenya. Eventually, Valentino moves to the States as part of the Lost Boys of Sudan program, which seeks to relocate some of the more than 27,000 boys that were displaced during the war.
You may have heard the term “Lost Boys” before. The reason there were so many boy survivors is that when villages were attacked and destroyed, many boys were out tending sheep or otherwise able to flee quickly and unseen. The older men were usually immediately killed, and the women and girls were raped and killed or taken as slaves. Groups of boys would join up with other small groups of boys, and together they would journey for years before they crossed the border in relief. Those who survived the trip fought off hunger, thirst, wild animals, insects, disease, and extreme fatigue to do so. Many of Valentino’s friends died along the way.
The book is a novel, which means it’s not a true autobiography. Valentino Achak Deng is a real person who told his story to the author, Dave Eggers, who says that while some things were changed, the essential truthfulness of the storytelling was maintained. Historical fiction is tricky because it leaves me unsure of what really happened, but I’m grateful for it because it still leaves me much more informed than I was before reading it.
I love reading books like this and The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns. Not only do they clue me in on the history of regions I have no clue about, but they give me a global perspective that is at the same time so personal. Reading about the characters and feeling what they feel reminds me that while these unseen people have grown up in vastly different circumstances and think in vastly different ways, they are still so much like me. The human experience is universal, it turns out! And this gives me compassion, which leads me to contemplation, which leads to action, to figure out what it looks like for me and my family to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Of course, that would be a whole ‘nother post.
