Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggersis an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He is also the founder of McSweeney's, a literary journal; the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia, and a human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness, and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 March 1970
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Most people would trade everything they know, everyone they know- they'd trade it all to know they've been seen, and acknowledged, that they might even be remembered. We all know the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment.
I'm interested in the human impact of the giant foot of misplaced government. After all, we encounter it every day.
I always like the idea of doing interviews with somebody but completely seriously not ever mentioning what that person is generally known for.
I had grown up as a fan of Studs Terkel. In Chicago he sort of looms large and is mentioned often.
I can remember exactly where I sat when my teacher first read Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach'.
Because I grew up with this naive expectation of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation.
Having lost people when they were young, you feel intimately acquainted with mortality, I guess. Though I procrastinate worse than anybody.
Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.
But Saudi Arabia is surprising in a lot of ways. Like any place, or any people, it relentlessly defies easy categorization.
I am a bike enthusiast; there's a certain amount of romance to bikes. They're both beautiful and utilitarian.
And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students.
So this is the space during tutoring hours. It's very busy. Same principles: one-on-one attention, complete devotion to the students' work and a boundless optimism and sort of a possibility of creativity and ideas.
I think I'm far too hopeful and trusting. That's something I got from my mum.
And that's actually the brunt of what we do is, people going straight from their workplace, straight from home, straight into the classroom and working directly with the students. So then we're able to work with thousands and thousands more students.