Friday night, I went to a reading of the book What is the What by Dave Eggers, a book inspired by the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a man who suffered through the wars in Sudan.
Deng came to the US in 2001. In fact, he was to travel on September 11, 2001, but was delayed. Instead of going to San Jose, he was told he would be going to Atlanta.
The founder of the Lost Boys Foundation in Atlanta, Mary Williams, met Deng a few years ago. Through the foundation, he started doing lectures about his life in Sudan. In his words, “my life is about war.” After telling his story, he realized he needed to document his life. Mary Williams agreed and wrote a letter to Dave Eggers, the novelist best known for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. She asked if Eggers would tell Deng’s story. What is the What is the novel that resulted.
At the reading, Deng told of what he had been through and the friends and family he’d lost along the way. He also proudly mentioned that he’d become a US citizen that very day. According to Deng, it was a little harder than he’d expected. “The more English you know, the more questions they ask!” The crowd laughed and smiled.
The reading was part of the Voice of Witness Book Series presented by McSweeney’s. The series is edited by Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen (a physician specializing in the aftermath of large-scale human-rights abuses, founder of the Life After Exoneration Project, and a practicing clinician). It’s a combination of both journalism and literature, telling the stories that often get ignored. The series has included: Surviving Justice: America’s Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, edited by Lola Vollen and Dave Eggers, featuring an introduction by Scott Turow, and Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath, edited by Lola Vollen and Chris Ying.
Voice of Witness is a non-profit organization.
In the summer of 2007, Deng will lead a group of interviewers to Sudan to work on a Voice of Witness project. While there, Deng will help interview women who have suffered through the civil wars in Sudan. He’ll then edit a book featuring the women’s first-person narratives. Deng started a foundation called the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation in San Francisco. All donations to the foundation will help publish this book. To learn more, visit valentinoachakdeng.com.
