| Sunday, April 29, 2007 9:53AM | | | | The Lost Boys of Sudan | Posted By: Catherine Texier
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| Tags: Mary Williams, Southern Sudan, Darfur, militia | Valentino Achak Deng had a surprise for the hundreds (at least, it looked like hundreds) of people waiting on line to see him and Dave Eggers at the Donnell Library on Thursday night: he had become a US citizen the day before! At Eggers’ prompting he opened the folder he had brought with him and showed us the certificate. We all applauded heartily. It was a sweet moment in an evening full of heart-warming and wrenching moments. And hugely informative – at least for those of us, like me, who hadn’t yet read What is the What.
For us, the biggest surprise of the evening was to put a face on the hero of Dave Eggers’ “novel,” and to discover how their unique collaboration came about.
It appeared that Dave Eggers didn’t just magically stumbled upon Valentino Achak Deng as a great subject for his new novel, but that Valentino, after landing in Atlanta – which is a story in itself – looked for a writer to tell his story. Valentino is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, one of the thousands of boys who fled Sudan and found refuge in the States via Kenya. The Atlanta story – a small coda to the epic saga of surviving the war in Southern Sudan, but nevertheless a “fated” one – is this one: Valentino’s original flight to San José was scheduled on September 11, 2001. Because of the attack, he was stranded in Nairobi for a few days, and offered an alternative flight to Atlanta, where he met Mary Williams, the founder of the Lost Boys Foundation. It’s a foundation that helps Sudanese refugees find good jobs, pass their GED exams, etc. Soon, Valentino let Mary Williams know that he wanted his story told. He knew his story was exemplary of what had happened to thousands of the other Sudanese boys, and “that it meant a lot to [his] fellow country men.” He wanted his story to be documented and “well told.” It was Mary Williams who had the idea of contacting Dave Eggers. Eggers had heard of the Lost Boys of Sudan in an article in the New York Times Magazine, and he was immediately interested.
So Achak Deng and Eggers met in Atlanta, where Deng watched his first “live” basketball game, and saw cheerleaders for the first time, which, he said with a big smile, was “the best part of the game.”
Dave Eggers was more than gracious in his role as interviewer, letting Valentino do most of the talking, and commenting on the slides they took while they traveled together to Sudan. And Valentino held the stage with an ease and simplicity certainly honed from all his years as public speaker, both in the State and in Kenya, where he lived after having escaped Sudan.
Valentino stories of adjusting to life in America – how it was much harder than he had expected, how he had pay his way through school with low paying jobs, which made his studies take years longer that he thought - were informative, but what kept the audience riveted is his comparison between the war in Southern Sudan that he experienced and the present genocide in Darfur. “From my own experience, I knew about the militia, the fierce horseback fighters raping, abducting children, setting villages on fire. I knew huge amount of civilians would be affected.” (One of the slides they showed us was of a fierce looking fighter on horseback brandishing a gun). Valentino went on to say that 2.5 million people were killed during the civil war, and 4 million people displaced into refugee camp (he was one of them). Valentino is worried that Darfur will end up being just as deadly, since the “Sudan Government is very smart. A lot of them went to Yale and Harvard, and they know how to control information. If they got away with the Southern Sudan civil wat, why not Darfur? It’s a genocide, and it isn’t ended.”
Deng, evidently, has outsmarted the Sudan Government leaders, with his idea to have his story told here in the States by a prominent American novelist. The success of What is the What will certainly go a long way to raise the world awareness to the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.
Even when showing the slides they took during their trip in Sudan, Deng was resolutely upbeat and smiling. Eggers reminded him how unsmiling he was in Sudan, how he looked so burdened, in spite of his joy to be back home. “It was great to be back home, but it was also very painful,” Deng admitted. “I had mixed feelings. I remembered my father at age 29, so strong and athletic, and when I went back he looked much older because of the war. My mother cried. She had seen so many families killed. I felt bad not to have done more.” We saw a slide of his father’s family, his 40 sons and daughters (from many wives). With a wry smile, Deng declared that he would only have one wife.
But in spite of his sadness, Deng believes that Sudanese must remain optimistic, regardless of the outcome of the civil war “They must work for secession or make unity attractive. It’s how people accept one another after the war has ended that determines the future.”
The proceeds of What is the What’s sales will go to help rebuild a small community in Sudan, Deng explained. He is going back this summer to build a high school and a culture center.
It was a stunning example of what writing (and writers) can achieve when it reaches beyond self-centered ambition, when it reaches out to the world.
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5 Comments | Add a Comment |
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| 6-11-09 4:53PM: Mark Hower said...
Really interesting. I have read a lot about this on other articles written by other people, but I must admit that you is the best.
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| 1-4-09 7:44PM: mandino said...
To what I understood, the lost boys of Sudan are those kids that were directly involved in the war as the child soldiers. I have been visiting the website of a child soldier too. Well, he was a child soldier, now, he is committed to building a school in Leer, Sudan. That is The Emma Academy Project.
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| 7-16-07 7:55AM: Sankar Roy said...
We, at Poets for Humanity (www.poetsforhumanity.com ), are requesting submissions (poetry/short prose/music/short movie/art) related to Darfur genocide. In the aftermath of the Tsunami, I and my colleagues at Poets for Humanity edited an international anthology of poetry (2005, Rupa - India and Bayeux Arts - Canada). Funds raised were then donated to charitable organizations to help with rebuilding the tsunami-devastated regions.
Our current project is to create & maintain a multimedia website ( http://www.writersalliance.net/ ) addressing the genocide in Darfur. Our mission is to raise awareness about this brutal genocide which has already killed over half-a-million poeple, mostly women and children. I invite you to visit this website and submit your creative work to editors@writersalliance.net .
I look forward to your help.
Best Regards,
Sankar Roy
http://www.sankarroy.com/
http://www.writersalliance.net
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| 6-12-07 4:47AM: don said...
oddly enough that happened to me and my friend too, only in the netherlands (europe). We were forming a cue to get our books signed when these people just moseyed on up there, started talking for an insane amount of time, and nobody thought less of it. we were bewildered to say the least. but, they went away, Dave Eggers signed our book and said i looked like geoff kloske. and we left happy after all. But now that you mentioned it, i realise that that's what they were doing with us too. i get pissed off in hinesight.
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| 4-29-07 10:25PM: alejandro said...
This wonderful event was ruined for me and others waiting in line to get our books signed when a couple of smug individuals brazenly cut to the front of the line and made us wait for 20 minutes while they schmoozed with the authors. One of the PEN staff members apologized and said "I can't tell you why, but it's for a good reason." The reason was that these people were writing a check for Valentino's foundation. Once they left, the PEN staff member returned and told the rest of us in line we would have to hurry up because the author had "a party to attend". Then Eggers himself announced that we would have to keep moving because "the library was about to close." I applaud anybody who makes a donation to a just cause. But I take offense at the presumptuousness of people who think they can cut in line and make everybody else wait because they want to flaunt the fact that they are giving money. Why not wait their turn in line to get their books signed and then make a donation?
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