in 2003, he began collaborating with dave eggers, a best-selling author who's own memoire had been shortlisted for the pulitzer prize. eggers agreed that the money from any book sales would go towards sudan. >> the story of the lost boys and valentino's story in particular just hadn't been told. this is a--a war that, you know, claimed over 2 million lives, and we knew almost nothing about it. >> the result was "what is the what," a fictionalized account of valentino's life that became a publishing sensation. >> we thought we would be telling a story about--about history, about something that had happened and--and we were-- you know, there was peace, uh, in south sudan and a peace agreement on its way, and, uh, you know, in the first handful of months that we were working together, that's when darfur blew up, and we thought, "well, this could never happen again," and it happened precisely the same way, and so-- then the sense of urgency was sort of doubled, um, because that same government was oppressing another region of the country, and we thought, if people really understand the underpinnin