When Deo landed at JFK airport he had $200 in his pocket, no job, no place to stay, and couldn’t speak a word of English. He was on the run, having escaped the genocide in his home country of Burundi (a neighbor to Rwanda). Haunted by nightmares, he slept the best he could in Central Park, worked as a delivery boy for $15 a day, and slowly starved. Two years later he enrolled in an Ivy League school. How did this happen?
Pulitzer-prize winning author Tracy Kidder details the amazing story of Deo’s adaption to his new home in New York City in this nonfiction work, Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness.
Kidder not only explores Deo’s flight from Burundi and his leap from homeless man to college graduate, but the people who helped Deo -- the ex-nun who found him a place to live, the New York couple who opened their home to him and paid his tuition, the lawyer who fought pro-bono for his American citizenship, and the people who gave money to help Deo build a medical clinic for the poor in Burundi.
I have always enjoyed Tracy Kidder’s writing, particularly the way he does not mold his subjects into people who fit a preferred storyline. Deo is an example of resilience and self-determination, but at the same time, he is shown as human, flawed and broken.
You can find Strength in What Remains at the Indianola Public Library on the nonfiction new shelf under the call number 305.896 Kid.
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