What is the What

By Dave Eggers.

I'm a huge fan of Eggers' work. A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius is essentially just that. I would have read this book even if it hadn't gotten some of the best press I've ever seen a book receive. It deserves every word of it. This book is wrenching. Told in the voice of Valentino Achak Deng, a lost boy of Sudan, it's the story of one child's flight among many from violence to violence. His story is microcosmic, and we see through his eyes the absolute ravaging of the country and it's vicious history of conflict. That would be enough to make this book great. What takes it beyond, however, is Eggers' ability to marry his own hyper sense of self awareness to a voice that is not his own. This too is a work of staggering genius. It's tragic, it's depressing, it is furiously hopeful. It is terribly, terribly human. You must read it.