NOTE: The following program has been cancelled due to a family emergency in the speaker’s family. The International Studies Program will be working to reschedule the event.
Join us on September 14, for “An Evening With Valentino Achak Deng: A Story of Civil War and the Lost Boys of Sudan.” Deng is a Sudanese refugee and member of the Lost Boys of Sudan program. In this lecture, he presents his personal story as one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan and his story of migration from Sudan to Ethiopia, Kenya, and finally the United States. In Sudan, he is separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War when the Arab militia wipe out his Dinka village, Marial Bai. He flees on foot with a group of other young boys, (the “Lost Boys”), on the way to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Eventually they are forced to flee to another refugee camp in Kakuma, after the Ethiopian dictator is overthrown and soldiers open fire on them. They make it to Kenya, and finally, years later, Deng moves to the United States. The story is told in parallel to subsequent hardships that new migrants face in the United States. Valentino Deng’s story is recounted in What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a 2006 novel written by Dave Eggers.
“An Evening With Valentino Achak Deng: A Story of Civil War and the Lost Boys of Sudan” is presented by the International Studies Program at the University of Wyoming, with support from the Wyoming Humanities Council. For more information, visit the International Studies site.
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