Novel: What is the What

Overview
"What Is the What" traces the life of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Sudanese "Lost Boys," whose childhood is shattered by civil war. Told in a first-person voice that channels Valentino's recollections and reflections, the narrative follows his flight from violence in southern Sudan, the long, perilous marches with thousands of other boys, and the year's-long displacement in refugee camps. The story moves between the past horrors of war and the uneasy present of resettlement in the United States, where survival takes on new, unexpected forms.
Dave Eggers frames the tale as a novelized biography: the shape and cadence of memory are preserved even as events are rendered with novelistic detail. The result is an intimate portrait that balances eyewitness immediacy with broader political and humanitarian context, making Valentino's individual life a lens on the larger tragedies and structural failures that produced the Lost Boys.

Narrative and Voice
Valentino's voice is plain, urgent, and often lyrical, alternating between blunt description and reflective asides. Episodes of extreme violence and deprivation, ambushes, hunger, forced marches, separation from family, and the deaths of companions, are recounted with a restraint that sharpens their impact. Interspersed with those scenes are quieter moments: friendships forged on the road, rituals and stories from home, and the small human gestures that sustain life amid catastrophe.
The novel structures memory as a series of returns: to villages burnt and abandoned, to refugee camps like Kakuma, and to the bureaucratic and cultural labyrinth of American resettlement. These returns highlight how trauma persists across time and place. Eggers' presence is subtle but important; his role as a conduit raises questions about authorship and testimony while allowing Valentino's experiences to reach a wider audience.

Themes and Impact
At its heart, the book explores displacement, identity, and the moral complexity of survival. It examines how a child's attempt to remain alive in wartime leaves emotional and ethical scars that complicate later life. The tension between gratitude for rescue and grief for what was lost underpins Valentino's relationships and his efforts to help those left behind. The narrative also scrutinizes global indifference, contrasting international rhetoric and aid bureaucracy with the immediate needs and agency of refugees.
Memory and storytelling function as acts of preservation and resistance; Valentino's recounting refuses to let victims be anonymous statistics. The novel grapples with representation, how to render atrocity without exploiting it, and with the obligations of those who listen or record such histories. Beyond its testimonial power, the book calls for practical engagement, spotlighting the uneven pathways from refuge to rebuilding and the ongoing responsibilities toward communities torn apart by conflict.
"What Is the What" resonates as both a personal odyssey and a broader indictment of neglect. It preserves the particulars of one life while insisting on the human faces behind headlines, leaving readers with a vivid sense of endurance, sorrow, and the stubborn drive to create meaning after ruin.