Thank you.

I just finished reading Dave Eggers' new book, What is the What, which is rather genius not only in the sense that Eggers wrote it, but nears my ultimate favorite genre: Historical Fiction. The best part about this book though, is that it's NOT necessarily fiction. It's true. It's just fictionalized in certain portions for the sake of style, cohesiveness and so forth. The novelized format tricked me into learning all kinds of interesting facts about Sudan as well as marveling at the resiliency and humor of the protagonist, Valentino Achak Deng. It really wove an exquisite web of stories and recent history eliciting a heavy contemplation of the cruetly we can inflict upon one another, befuddlement at the extreme tension between groups of humans everywhere, and utmost resepect for both the protagonist and the author. One for surviving horrific political turmoil and genocide, then using the force of his personality to assist his fellow refugees and rebuild his country; and the other for presenting this information to the public in an articulate, inspiring piece of art.