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Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng on What is the What

Dave Eggers

Host Jonathan Judaken talks with renowned author Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng about the 2015 Memphis Reads selection What is the What, which recounts Valentino’s epic trek as a Sudanese Lost Boy seeking refuge in the midst of the carnage of war.

In November, Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng held public discussions of the 2015 Memphis Reads selection What is the What, a novel Eggers published in 2006 with the subtitle, The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction even though it tells the true story of Valentino, who trekked a thousand miles as one of Sudan’s so-called Lost Boys, seeking refuge from a horrific civil war in Sudan: first in Ethiopia, then in Kenya, and then in the United States. 

For more information on upcoming events in the Rhodes College Communities in Conversation program, you can visit their Facebook page.  

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