A Man of Good Hope

September 8, 2014
South African journalist Steinberg (Sizwe’s Test) vividly recounts one Somali man’s experience of diaspora, resulting in a book that is part biography and part contemporary history. Steinberg first met Asad Abudullahi in 2010, in the wake of the South African riots that targeted the thousands of refugees, among them Asad, drawn there by the promise of a better life. In 1991, Asad, not yet in his teens, fled the anarchy in his native country, ending up in Kenya. He honed his survival instincts in Nairobi’s slums before traveling to Ethiopia in search of members of his fractured family. In Ethiopia, he found work as a truck driver’s assistant and grew “broad shouldered and tall,” his body a “badge of elegance… legacy of hardship.” When Asad eventually reached South Africa in 2004, he took on the dangerous work of running a shop in one of the country’s poorest townships. The gaps in Asad’s account sometimes elicit skepticism from Steinberg, but, on the whole, his deep empathy for his subject overrules his doubts. The extent of Asad’s loneliness struck Steinberg during one interview where he began to comprehend the tenuous, fleeting nature of Asad’s connections to everyone he encountered during his harrowing odyssey. The book’s subject matter may be unfamiliar to most Americans, but Steinberg’s thoughtful approach and Asad’s attitude of droll resilience make for a tale that any reader can appreciate.

November 1, 2014
Steinberg (Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City, 2011, etc.) weaves together the many personas of a man whose story is at once unique and an archetypal example of an all-too-large collective.Asad Abdullahi is many things: refugee, entrepreneur, father, dreamer. In the beginning, though, his identity was simple: a happy child with loving parents living in a city he called his own. That city was Mogadishu, Somalia, and in 1991, Asad's idyllic family life was shattered due to their identity as members of the Daarood tribe. When violence against Daarood men became common, Asad's father started sleeping away from home to keep the family safe. One morning, he simply didn't return. Soon after, Asad's mother was murdered by militiamen. As his family and other Daarood refugees fled the violence and eventually their country, Asad was repeatedly separated from those he knew and loved. Upon his eventual arrival in Kenya, the ritual of leaving everything he knew behind became the norm. He created new, nontraditional family units, but he always separated himself from them because, as Steinberg writes, "he is a person with an enormous appetite for risk." Asad's adolescent years were marked by a pattern of being taken in and looked after just long enough for him to believe he could improve his life by moving on. So he moved continuously on and sometimes up, carrying the scars of failures and mistakes with him along the way. Steinberg's solid prose is perfect for the task of sharing Asad's history. He probes the darkest moments of his subject's life without ever becoming maudlin, telling the story starkly and bluntly. He ably demonstrates to readers Asad's absolute refusal to give up while reminding them that, despite his tribulations, in many ways, his path was his own to form. For truly capturing the power of dreams and the resilience of human nature, this book deserves a wide audience.

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December 1, 2014

South African journalist Steinberg (African studies & criminology, Oxford Univ.; Three Letter Plague) follows Assad Abdullahi from the time the eight-year-old Assad witnessed his mother murdered in their Mogadishu home by rival clan militiamen bent on overthrowing the government of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, through stays with and separations from distant refugee relatives in Kenya and Ethiopia, to years of struggle to survive and support others in postapartheid South Africa, where the native population subjected the Somalis among them to theft, violence, and death. Through chronicling the life of this courageous and determined young man, Steinberg succeeds in illuminating the history, sociology, and even some of the complex politics of the Somali people dispersed throughout eastern and southern Africa. Based on interviews with Assad conducted during three years in South Africa and with people who knew him or his family members elsewhere in Africa and England, Steinberg presents a more sympathetic view of Somali culture (as personified by Assad and those close to him) than Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad, though he ignores none of the worst manifestations of Assad's people. VERDICT Important for readers interested in conflicts in Africa. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.]--Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014
Steinberg (Sizwe's Test, 2008), an intuitively gentle writer, patiently and thoughtfully teases out the memories of a young Somali man, Asad Abdullahi, a boy kicked through life like a stone, often using Asad's own words: My fear was a very lonely fear, brother. When he was just eight, right after his father disappeared, Asad's mother was shot to death in front of him, and his long, fragmented odyssey began, extending from Somalia to Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Steinberg's book includes simple maps of Asad's long journey to find refugee status in America, one that covers decades of memories, some beautiful (his mother's plaited hair) and many disturbing (beatings, deaths, homelessness, and loss). Still, stretching behind him were his tribal and family connections, however tenuous and fragile, that made him feel he belonged, however transparently. Steinberg himself retraces some of Asad's steps, and his caring, questioning prose illuminates how, after all Asad has endured and all he remembers, he can still be a man who carries hope within him. A remarkable story, skillfully etched.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)