DUC Lectures-Dave Eggers

The 2009 selection for One Book One Marin is Dave Eggers’ highly-acclaimed novel What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng.

This story of the lost boys of the Sudan is an inspired choice. Deng was chased from his village at age seven and forced to trek across Africa under the most harrowing circumstances.

The San Francisco Chronicle calls the book “strange, beautiful and unforgettable.” Francine Prose, writing in the N.Y. Times Book Review, called it “An extraordinary work of witness, and of art.”

What is the What was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Book Passage is partnering with the Public Libraries of Marin County, Dominican University of California, the Marin History Museum, Marin Education Fund, and others for this county-wide celebration.

Dave Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1998, Eggers founded the independent publishing house McSweeney’s. In 2002, Eggers opened 826 Valencia, an extraordinary writing and tutoring lab for young people in San Francisco’s Mission District.