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Out Of My Home: One Book, One Philadelphia
If you are fortunate enough to live in Philadelphia, then perhaps you might be reading Dave Egger's What Is the What, the 2008 One Book, One Philadelphia selection. Even if you don't live in Philadelphia, please read the book and submit a short story to us! We are students at Drexel University who are trained peer tutors in writing. We will give you feedback on your story and help you revise it.
This month's prompt is inspired by the life of Valentino Achak Deng and his struggle to find his way out of his village in Sudan during a civil war, which began in 1983. His story describes what it is like to be separated from his family, the country he loves, and be forced to journey through the wilderness. Valentino was born in the village of Marial Bol, Sudan. After he finally walked thousands of miles from Sudan to Ethiopia, threatened by gunfire and wild animals, he lived thirteen years in a refugee camp before being chosen to come to the United States. He now is a student at Allegheny College and has started a foundation to build schools for children in his native village.
Valentino's story speaks volumes about the importance of family and the people who surround him. Dave Eggers uses fictional devices such as suspense, mystery, conflict, and description to enhance Valentino's memories, which is why the book is called a novel instead of a memoir. What is the What was written ten years after the events occurred. The result is a stunningly clear remembrance that is both beautiful and descriptive. Here is an example from Book I:
"I have the fortune of having seen more suffering than I have suffered myself, but nevertheless, I have been starved, I have been beaten with sticks, with rods, with brooms and stones and spears. I have ridden five miles on a truckbed loaded with corpses. I have watched too many young boys die in the desert, some as if sitting down to sleep, some after days of madness. I have seen three boys taken by lions, eaten haphazardly. I watched them lifted from their feet, carried off in the animal's jaws and devoured in the high grass, close enough that I could hear the wet snapping sounds of the tearing of flesh. I have watched a close friend die next to me in an overturned truck, his eyes opened to me, his life leaking from a hole I could not see. And yet at this moment, as I am strewn across the couch and my hand is wet with blood, I find myself missing all of Africa. I miss Sudan, I miss the howling grey desert of Northwest Kenya. I miss the yellow nothing of Ethiopia." (What is the What, page 7.)Now it's your turn!
Think about a dream or memory or event that takes place in a distinct setting. (It doesn't have to be someplace real). Take note of all of the objects that stand out and any words that are thought or spoken. Write a short story, that, if you wish, you can model after Dave Eggers, in which you tell your dream or story using fictional devices, such as literary repetition, suspense, vivid details, and/or mystery. Try to write at least a paragraph.
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