The "Lost Boys" of southern Sudan are the tens of thousands of children who fled the Sudanese civil war of the 1980s. After Arab militias attacked their villages, they walked hundreds of miles on a terrifying journey toward safety.
Many children died from starvation, disease and additional attacks. Those who survived made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia.
One of those children was Valentino Achak Deng. When his village was burned, he couldn't find his parents. He was about 6 years old.
Deng is 25 now, and a student at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. His story is the basis of a novel written by Dave Eggers. It's a blend of fact and imagination called What Is the What.
Deng and Eggers talk about their collaboration and about the many traumas the children endured.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
