(What Is the What The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng) PDF KINDLE Û Dave Eggers

• Hardcover
• 475
• What Is the What The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
• Dave Eggers
• English
• 06 March 2019
• 9781932416640

Dave Eggers ✓ 4 Summary

What Is the What The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Summary ´ 104 His village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot pursued by militias government bombers and wild animals crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom When he finally is resettled in the United States. Valentino I just don t know what God has against you These words were directed at the subject of this novelbiography and are pretty much a motif that runs throughout most of this bookThis is one man s true story of the Lost Boys of the Sudan Valentino Achak Deng at age seven and thousands of boys just like him endured all manner of hardship as they fled their homes as civil war beginning in 1983 devastated their country Their journey from refugee camp to refugee camp is fraught with the most horrific events you could imagine This book is a testament to not only how cruel man can be to his fellow man but also to Deng s faith and perseverance Calling this book sad or heartbreaking seems trite Repeating a litany of hardships these boys endured would render them trivial It s inconceivable for me to imagine my own son at age seven seven making this type of journey There is also a parallel story of Deng s robbery and assault while in this county With everything this man has experienced Deng was able to transcend these events and find purpose and meaning in his lifeAlthough it says novel on the spine as Dave Egger s subject states his earlier life had to be fictionalized to condense the story and fold characters into one another for narrative flowThis is not a book to read in order to be entertained but as an eye opener or wake up call to what can go wrong in this world and a rallying cry to do something about it Proceeds of the sale of this book go towards funding of a nonprofit organization to increase access to education in South Sudan This is the web site website also has a reader s guide to the book

What Is the What The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Summary ´ 104 From the bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who along with thousands of other children the so called Lost Boys was forced to leave. If you know me at all you know I read a lot So I don t take these reviews lightly Here goes What is the What is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever readThe story of Valentino Achak Deng a so called Lost Boy of the Sudan is so moving that after reading the book I went to his web site and signed up for information on how I can help the cause Dave Eggers who is easily one of my favorite fiction writers has donated the proceeds of the book to a foundation co founded by he and Valentino wwwvalentinoachackdengorgThe writing is brilliant and the story is compellingbut I think what makes the book so great for me is the sheer tragedy of this boy s life and the unbelieveable sense of courage and optimism he showed throughout a life that would have caused most people to simply give up Valentino s courage is beyond belief As his story unfolds it s unimaginable that he could have survived and it s heartbreaking how at each turn things continued to get worse His survival is a mystery that will never be solvedyet here he is as a young adult doing everything he can to help the world learn from his experienceThe book was also a great history lesson about Sudan and Africa in general and gives the reader great insight into the troubles in Darfur today If the world does not learn from this story then perhaps we are doomed as a speciesFinally though the story is Valentino s the writing is all Eggers He could have easily played the story as a straight biography but instead Eggers weaves Valentino s life together in a beautiful way going back and forth between his time in Africa and his new life in Atlanta And while his life in Africa was indeed a horror his life in the US is not much better and perhaps the biggest lesson of the book we have tried to help these Lost Boys but we are far from perfect and have made many mistakes as a societyIt s ironic that this morning I awoke to a front page story in the Arizona Republic about a birthday celebration for Arizona s Lost Boys there are about 500 Sudanese boys living in the Valley They all celebrate their birthday on Jan 1 because they have no idea when they were really bornIt s also ironic that I finished this book around the same time as I saw The Kite Runner When I read The Kite Runner and even Hosseini s second novel A thousand Splendid Suns I thought life was terrible for the Afghans but Valentino s real story makes the fictional story of the boys in The Kite Runner seem tame by comparison But together these stories make me feel both lucky to live in America and at the same time ashamed that the world can let things like this happenAs I sat reading Valentino s story on my sofa I thought here is a boy who has experienced things I couldn t even imagine while I sit in my 2100 suare foot home with a fridge full of food two cars a happy and relatively healthy family casually spending 4 for a cup of coffee and throwing out food each day than Valentino ate in a month It reaffirms my political views and teaches me to be thankful for what I have and importantly that I have a profound responsibility as a citizen of the world to help those who are less fortunate If you think that makes me a bleeding heart liberal than I m proud to wear that badgeRead this book It will change your life

Summary Ü PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook ✓ Dave Eggers

What Is the What The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Summary ´ 104 He finds a life full of promise but also heartache and myriad new challenges Moving suspenseful and unexpectedly funny What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man back cove. Now that was a lot of information Too muchValentino Achak Deng is one of the lost boys of the civil war in Sudan He survived a genocide walking from Sudan to Ethiopia where boys were getting picked off one by one by lions in the night Crocodiles vultures dysentery soldiers tying to blow him up starvation a car accident and a robbery in Atlanta after being relocated to the USLife has not been easy for Valentino Yet he somehow keeps going with a positivity that is hard to believe The story is moving and Dave Eggers can sure turn a phrase but there was so much detailoh my poor overloaded head if this hadn t been an audiobook I never would have gotten through itBut that does not mean that I don t admire Valentino or that I believe his story and that of Sudan should not have been told I doIt just that less is sometimes35 stars