A Man of Good Hope

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.