What is the What

Dave Eggers's novel draws on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who later resettled in the United States, where the story is narrated. Achak is still a small boy when the civil war tears through his Dinka village of Marial Bai and separates him from his family. He joins thousands of other orphaned boys on a long walk toward Ethiopia, meeting government soldiers, rebels and militias, hyenas and lions, disease and hunger on the way. The book is told with unexpected humour, and the author's proceeds go to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation. Published in 2006, it reached the final round of the National Book Award.

It appears on a published list of every book Barack Obama recommended during his presidency.