KEY POINTS:
The story of an epic journey for survival, What is the What is a remarkable novel. It is also an extraordinary display of ventriloquism. It may well be the most significant book you read this year.
The novel is really an autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee from civil war. Forced out of his village and separated from his parents, he walks to Ethiopia, then Kenya. On the way he is both victim of and witness to more genocide and ethnic cleansing. He then spends his next 17 years in squalid refugee camps until he is plucked out to travel to the promised land of America.
Once there, he again is subject to dreadful abuse and racism. He becomes an expert on 'man's inhumanity to man' - but does not lose his own humanity or sense of humour.
I was troubled by an autobiography billed as a novel, but it works. Valentino tells his tale as a confessional, initially to a burglar in his apartment and thus Eggers is able to establish two time frames - Africa and present-day America. This is a tale of suffering and survival, epic in scope and current in its concerns. It is a poignant reminder of the depths and strengths of the human spirit.
*Hamish Hamilton, $35.00
- Detours, HoS
