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What Is the What
704 pages
An epic, harrowing, yet surprisingly warm testament to human endurance across continents and decades.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting down with a survivor who trusts you enough to share the entirety of their life, holding nothing back. The narrative moves with a steady, relentless momentum, mirroring the endless walking of its protagonist across unforgiving landscapes. Despite the staggering amount of grief, violence, and displacement it contains, the atmosphere is never entirely consumed by despair; instead, it is infused with an astonishing warmth and a wry, unexpected humor. The prose is conversational and deeply empathetic, stripping away the distance of historical statistics to place you directly inside the visceral reality of a refugee's experience. It is a profoundly sobering yet expansive read that will captivate anyone drawn to sweeping, socially conscious stories about the sheer, stubborn will to survive and find a place in the world.
- Mood
- sobering
- expansive
- resilient
- deeply human
- Tone
- earnest
- empathetic
- wry
- harrowing
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- survival against impossible odds · the search for home · the immigrant experience · resilience of the human spirit · arbitrary nature of tragedy
- The writing
- Direct, conversational, and deeply empathetic, blending journalistic clarity with novelistic emotional depth.
- The arc
- Moves from devastating loss and relentless peril through a grueling endurance test, ultimately arriving at a complex, hard-won resilience in a flawed promised land.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate sweeping, socially conscious narratives that ground massive historical tragedies in deeply personal, humanizing stories.
Content notes
- war trauma
- child death
- starvation
- graphic violence
- displacement
- racism
- assault
About the book
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 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, 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. --From the Trade Paperback edition.
Description from Open Library.
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