What Is the What
E490802
What Is the What is a biographical novel by Dave Eggers that recounts the harrowing life story of Sudanese Lost Boy Valentino Achak Deng.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| What Is the What canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5070835 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What Is the What Context triple: [Dave Eggers, notableWork, What Is the What]
-
A.
The History of Everything
"The History of Everything" is the fast-paced, science-themed theme song for the sitcom *The Big Bang Theory*, performed by the Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies.
-
B.
Archewell
Archewell is a charitable and media-focused organization established by Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, to support humanitarian initiatives and produce socially conscious content.
-
C.
The Greatest Show on Earth
The Greatest Show on Earth is a popular science book by Richard Dawkins that presents the evidence for evolution in a clear, accessible, and comprehensive way.
-
D.
The Story of More
The Story of More is a nonfiction book by scientist Hope Jahren that examines how human consumption and population growth are driving climate change and environmental degradation, and what individuals can do to respond.
-
E.
"WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us"
"WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us" is a nonfiction book by technology thought leader Tim O’Reilly that explores how emerging technologies are reshaping the economy, work, and society, and argues for consciously steering innovation toward more humane outcomes.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What Is the What Target entity description: What Is the What is a biographical novel by Dave Eggers that recounts the harrowing life story of Sudanese Lost Boy Valentino Achak Deng.
-
A.
The History of Everything
"The History of Everything" is the fast-paced, science-themed theme song for the sitcom *The Big Bang Theory*, performed by the Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies.
-
B.
Archewell
Archewell is a charitable and media-focused organization established by Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, to support humanitarian initiatives and produce socially conscious content.
-
C.
The Greatest Show on Earth
The Greatest Show on Earth is a popular science book by Richard Dawkins that presents the evidence for evolution in a clear, accessible, and comprehensive way.
-
D.
The Story of More
The Story of More is a nonfiction book by scientist Hope Jahren that examines how human consumption and population growth are driving climate change and environmental degradation, and what individuals can do to respond.
-
E.
"WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us"
"WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us" is a nonfiction book by technology thought leader Tim O’Reilly that explores how emerging technologies are reshaping the economy, work, and society, and argues for consciously steering innovation toward more humane outcomes.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| author | Dave Eggers NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| awarded |
2006 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist
ⓘ
2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Fiction) ⓘ |
| basedOn | life of Valentino Achak Deng ⓘ |
| benefitsOrganization | Valentino Achak Deng Foundation NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| collaboratedWith | Valentino Achak Deng NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| coverArtist | Dave Eggers NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| featuresEthnicGroup | Dinka people NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | hardcover ⓘ |
| genre |
biographical fiction
ⓘ
historical novel ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 978-1-932416-20-4 ⓘ |
| hasRealPersonAsProtagonist | Valentino Achak Deng NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasSequel | none ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
identity
ⓘ
migration ⓘ resilience ⓘ survival ⓘ trauma ⓘ war ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | contemporary American literature ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Valentino Achak Deng NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| marketedAs | novel ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativeForm | fictionalized autobiography ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person ⓘ |
| pageCount | 535 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2006 ⓘ |
| publisher | McSweeney's NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| setting |
Ethiopia
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Kenya NERFINISHED ⓘ Sudan NERFINISHED ⓘ United States of America ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| subject |
Lost Boys of Sudan
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Second Sudanese Civil War NERFINISHED ⓘ civil war ⓘ displacement ⓘ refugees ⓘ |
| timePeriodCovered |
1980s
ⓘ
1990s ⓘ early 2000s ⓘ |
| titleOrigin | Dinka creation myth ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: What Is the What Description of subject: What Is the What is a biographical novel by Dave Eggers that recounts the harrowing life story of Sudanese Lost Boy Valentino Achak Deng.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.