Why was the book fictionalized, as opposed to it being strictly nonfiction? And why didn Valentino write the book himself?
Valentino and Dave were faced with many difficulties in pursuing this project. When Valentino first arrived in the United States, he wanted to make his story known, so it might help Westerners understand the conflict in Sudan. But his written English was very limited. He then went to Mary Williams of the Lost Boys Foundation and asked her for help in telling his story. She wrote a letter to Dave, whose memoir she’d read. After years of consultations and interviews, Valentino and Dave decided that the best way to tell the story would be to tell it in Valentino’s voice. But because Valentino was very young when many of the book’s events took place, there is no way he can recount his life with a degree of detail necessary for a compelling nonfiction book. In a book that is classified as nonfiction, for instance, there can be little or no dialogue, for it’s impossible for anyone to recount conversations from 20 years ago with the accuracy necessary to call it fact. A book without any dialo
