Valentino Achak Deng, real-life hero of this engrossing epic,
was a refugee from the Sudanese civil war-the bloodbath before
the current Darfur bloodbath-of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized
memoir, Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) makes
him an icon of globalization. Separated from his family when Arab
militia destroy his village, Valentino joins thousands of other "Lost
Boys," beset by starvation, thirst and man-eating lions on
their march to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where
Valentino pieces together a new life. He eventually reaches America,
but finds his quest for safety, community and fulfillment in many
ways even more difficult there than in the camps: he recalls, for
instance, being robbed, beaten and held captive in his Atlanta
apartment. Eggers's limpid prose gives Valentino an unaffected,
compelling voice and makes his narrative by turns harrowing, funny,
bleak and lyrical. The result is a horrific account of the Sudanese
tragedy, but also an emblematic saga of modernity-of the search
for home and self in a world of unending upheaval.
