He’s reached out to people who’ve been victimized by social injustices through McSweeney’s non-profit book series, Voice of Witness, and has written the bestseller What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a novelized autobiography of a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan. The story, described by Publishers Weekly as an "engrossing epic," details Deng's struggles: after Arab militia destroyed his village, he contended with starvation, thirst and man-eating lions while on the march to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. Meet Eggers and Deng at the lecture Plight And Promise of Africa: Dave Eggers And Valentino Achak Deng. The talk takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the college’s McArthur Gymnasium. Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S., St. Petersburg. 727-864-7979. Free.
[image-1]Providing an intense close-up of independent world cinema that would otherwise never play the Bay area, the Gasparilla International Film Festival hosts the Global Lens series the second Thursday of each month at Tampa Museum of Art. This month's film, Ocean of an Old Man, directed by Rajesh Shera, India, 2008, depicts the devastating aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when an elderly British schoolteacher comes to grips with his own loss as he searches for missing students on the remote Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar. $8, $5 students, seniors and TMA members. Second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m. Tampa Museum of Art, 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa.
