why is everyone worried about africa? what about the lost and homeless in america? there are thousands lost and alone, living in cars - why are we not taking care of americans? Vets are on the street...mothers with kids in cars...take care of our own? Go to the Ozarks...travel through AmericA - go the appalachians...take care of america before you go to africa - then we might have a solid backbone to help others - take care of americans first - go to our soup kitchens - adopt black/white babies here - we have the same problems here - HELP AMERICA FIRST...AND THEN I WILL UNDERSTAND WHY YOU GO TO AFRICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD - TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN FIRST - TAKE CARE OF A KID IN A CAR IN DETROIT - THEN LEARN - AMERICA'S HOMELESS NEED HELP TOO -

Yes, people are homeless in America. People are being raped and murdered en masse in Africa. It's people like you not being able to understand the difference that keeps countries that could actually help improve the situation from doing anything. There are countless people in the third world who would love the chance to be homeless in America.

Burrr... it's cold in here.

You might check out 826valencia.org to see what Dave Eggers is doing for America's children and their teachers.

Nick Nolte, as Canadian UN peacekeeping force commander, on why the west won't intervene:

"You are dirty, you are worse than a nigger, you are African."

The only black the west cares for is black gold. We are all hypocrites and it will be a long time before any of us can claim differently. Our tools of opression are trade agreements and farm subsidies, we cut deeper than machete. Hypocrites and do-nothings. Armchair moralists with selective memories cause hey, I gotta get mines, right? You had to soften the edges huh? To sell the books to make the money to build the community center, huh? To get the message out, as long as the message isn't too disturbing? To hell with that, I say send out a numbered, limited edition, blood-soaked rag with each book. I say we put Col. Kurtz's pile of little arms on every doorstep in America and see who doesn't care anymore. Break the spell. Clear the fog. Wash the illusion away and bring the fear home. I don't criticize these men, they have done all that they could and what they thought best to do. I criticize man.

I have lived and traveled extensively in East Africa, including the Sudan. I am uneasy about this story for several reasons. I do hope I'm wrong, but let me spell them out:

Granted, I've seen just the one photo of Valentino, but he does not look east African; he looks west African. (He's too "brown," while the people of this part of East Africa tend to be very black.) He also has none of the ritual scarring on the face common to tribes of southern Sudan, particularly the Dinka and Nuer. This might be because he was forced to leave his tribe at a very young age, but again, this is a cause for discomfort on my part.

Next, while there might be lions in Sudan, I don't think there are too many. They tend to live farther south into Kenya and Tanzania. The "big cat" that is most hazardous in southern Sudan is the leopard. That and crocodiles tend to be the biggest hazards in that part of the world.

Having said that, Valentino has a very Sudanese-sounding name, and the story claims to have revisited his childhood home.

As I said, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not 100% comfortable with what I've read here.

Get robbed and then have Dave Eggers write a book about you! It's like the American dream, with vomit all over it.

I have a great solution to the cynicism, skepticism, sarcasm, and anger displayed in the responses to this interview so far: read the book. Or to start with, at least find some back issues of "the Believer" and read Eggers' accounts of his trip to Sudan with Deng. I think you will find your attitudes melting away to be replaced by deep awe and sadness as you come to realize the horrors and hardships experienced by war refugees. Maybe you are an expert on anthropology, zoology, and geography and your doubts about the veracity of the story cloud your ability to be moved by it. Maybe you don't understand the positive influence McSweeney's has had on the publishing world and on the lives touched by non-profit organizations supported by McSweeney's and its patrons. Maybe its too difficult to see beyond the suffering in your own city or neighborhood to understand that every drop of good helps, whether in the US or Africa or anywhere else in the world and that Deng is proof that helping Americans is not any better or more altruistic than helping Africans, since he is in the position of being born an African and learning to become an American. If the interview alone wasn't enough to help you understand, read the book. Reserve your judgement of Eggers and Deng until you know the full story and all the details. Put aside your current prejudices and attempt to experience, if only second-hand, a life other than your own. I'm not sure what it is about this story that has elicited such bitterness in such a short amount of time - maybe it's the fear of actually thinking about the causes behind Deng's ordeal and that we cannot simply dismiss his case as being the end-product of a violent or un-evolved culture because his story did not end when he reached the safety of our borders. Whatever the cause, I was truly disturbed more by the reader responses to the interview than by the atrocitied mentioned in it.

I noticed that only a few people on this letters page even came close to addressing the suffering and humanity that the book is trying, in the best way these men know how, to express. The fact that people suffer in the U.S. does not excuse us from caring that people suffer in Africa. The fact that many people live in bad situations in Africa does not make it ok to dismiss the help that they need here. And finally, the fact that someone isn't black enough or didn't have ritual scarring done does not make it ok to completely ignore the book's theme in favor of nitpicking that is likely to create entirely misplaced doubts..

I salute these two men for the job they undertook. Thank you. You're both inspirations. I wish you both the best.