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A Man of Good Hope
In January 1991, when civil war came to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, two-thirds of the city’s population fled. Among them was eight-year-old Asad Abdullahi. His mother murdered by a militia, his father somewhere in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that scattered the Somali people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the world.
This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a skeptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. He lived in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to the desert towns deep in the Ethiopian hinterland.
By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had honed an array of wily talents. At the age of seventeen, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, he made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hard-nosed businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and, to the astonishment of his peers, seduced and married her.
Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, South Africa, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. And so began a shocking adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined.
A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human—personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad’s is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something permanent on this earth.
This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a skeptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. He lived in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to the desert towns deep in the Ethiopian hinterland.
By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had honed an array of wily talents. At the age of seventeen, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, he made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hard-nosed businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and, to the astonishment of his peers, seduced and married her.
Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, South Africa, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. And so began a shocking adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined.
A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human—personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad’s is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something permanent on this earth.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2014
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1552 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
June 7, 2016
...xenophobia is a product of citizenship, the claiming of a new birthright. Finally, we belong here, and that means you do not.
The first thing I want to say is that I loved the writing style of this memoir. The author is very clear about what was said by Asad, and what was interpreted by him, the writer. In this way I think we get more from the telling than if it was written by Asad himself, there is enough distance between the feeling and the writing to try and make sense of what is being told. The author's writing is clear and understated. A Man of Good Hope is about so much more than Xenophobia, it looks at a whole continent and it's issues. It also gave some insight into post-apartheid South Africa, and I find it very worrying that there's still so much fear and anger caused by any "otherness". I think that we should probably all read more memoirs like this to remind us that we should not judge until we know more about people's history and experiences. I will be reading The Number, a biography of a prison gangster, by same author soon.
The Story: Asad’s odyssey, the story of one refugee among too many, is chronicled in this superb book by South African writer Jonny Steinberg. On the surface, it is simply the biography of a lonely young migrant who dreams of a decent life, hardening his shell and hustling to survive in hostile human environments. Yet it is really an epic African saga that chronicles some fundamental modern issues such as crime, human trafficking, migration, poverty and xenophobia, while giving glimpses into the Somali clan system, repression in Ethiopia and lethal racism in townships.
December 8, 2015
When Steinberg first meets Asad, the Somali man whose life Steinberg has chosen to help explain the extreme black-on-black violence South Africa experienced in 2008, Asad is living in Blikkiesdorp. Blikkiesdorp in English is called Tin Can Town because of its sixteen hundred identical one-room tin living structures laid out in sixteen identical square blocks. It was erected to house families evicted from homes they occupied illegally. Blikkiesdorp is thirty kilometers from Cape Town, separated by an expensive taxi ride.
Asad and his wife and child were placed in Blikkiesdorp in 2010, after living two years in refugee camps to which they fled after the mob violence in 2008. In the process of uncovering Asad’s personal history, Steinberg illuminates for us the roots of Africa’s history of economic migration as well as the means, and its turbulent history of violence and pervasive corruption. We also get flashes of understanding about human nature, mob violence, and the psyche of a Somali man. Steinberg had the instincts to capture this story of one man, the skill to tease out the important strands of his history, and the perseverance to complete this riveting and important work.
At the start of this non-fiction narrative, we see the origins of Asad’s story in Mogadishu, when his mother was shot in the chest as she clutched him, a victim to anti-Daarood violence by Hiwaye meant to unseat the Daarood president, President Mohamed Siad Barre. Asad was eight years old. An aunt and uncle whisked the five children across the city in preparation to fleeing to Kenya—the start of a lifelong journey of displacement. Steinberg thus begins with the history of lineages and clans and by the end of the narrative demonstrates the centrality of clan affiliation in a person’s life.
It is distressing, to say the least, to read of Asad’s early years once he is separated from his aunt and uncle in a continuation of the violence. He manages to eke out a living in a parade of cities, gradually becoming a young man on the basis of grit and cunning. He marries, and decides to improve his lot by trying to work in South Africa, where he will discover the hatreds against Somalis is resurgent in the anti-apartheid south. The inequities of life in South Africa among blacks in the new regime led some to strike out at those less numerous and therefore less powerful than themselves. The phenomenon of assigning blame for one’s inability to escape one’s condition is something from which we can all learn.
The mere process of recounting the thought processes of a young, unschooled but hardworking boy in duress tells us something of the conditions in which he operated, as well as how someone makes decisions in an environment of extremely circumscribed horizons: he held a very “now” worldview that held little past and an unknowable future. When he married, at nineteen, Asad's developed his grasp of concept of 'future':
One cannot help but wonder if most people, even those who persecuted Asad, would also exhibit such constraints on behaviors if questioned closely enough. Asad and his fellow entrepreneurial Somalis had contempt for South African blacks:
Writing a book about the remembered bits of a man’s life is fraught with difficulty, which Steinberg frankly acknowledges at several stages. His struggle alone is enlightening: the questions he puts to Asad are an attempt to help Asad remember how he felt at different stages of his life. Asad kept a Red Book, a kind of occasional diary in his teen years, which he eventually lost in his border-crossings:
This narrative nonfiction is being released in paperback today by Vintage, a division of Penguin Random House. PRH currently has a 20% off pre-holiday sale (with free shipping!) until the end of the year, so don’t hold back on the opportunity to have a look at a fascinating, detailed, and unusual portrait of a man living on the second-most populous continent on earth.
Asad and his wife and child were placed in Blikkiesdorp in 2010, after living two years in refugee camps to which they fled after the mob violence in 2008. In the process of uncovering Asad’s personal history, Steinberg illuminates for us the roots of Africa’s history of economic migration as well as the means, and its turbulent history of violence and pervasive corruption. We also get flashes of understanding about human nature, mob violence, and the psyche of a Somali man. Steinberg had the instincts to capture this story of one man, the skill to tease out the important strands of his history, and the perseverance to complete this riveting and important work.
At the start of this non-fiction narrative, we see the origins of Asad’s story in Mogadishu, when his mother was shot in the chest as she clutched him, a victim to anti-Daarood violence by Hiwaye meant to unseat the Daarood president, President Mohamed Siad Barre. Asad was eight years old. An aunt and uncle whisked the five children across the city in preparation to fleeing to Kenya—the start of a lifelong journey of displacement. Steinberg thus begins with the history of lineages and clans and by the end of the narrative demonstrates the centrality of clan affiliation in a person’s life.
"That he was an Abdullahi and an AliYusef would disappear from his life for years on end; there are, he would discover, many ways of being Somali other than through one’s clan. And then, without warning, his lineage would burst back into his life and shape his fate. When it did so, he would feel that he had been asleep for years, reeling further and further from himself."
It is distressing, to say the least, to read of Asad’s early years once he is separated from his aunt and uncle in a continuation of the violence. He manages to eke out a living in a parade of cities, gradually becoming a young man on the basis of grit and cunning. He marries, and decides to improve his lot by trying to work in South Africa, where he will discover the hatreds against Somalis is resurgent in the anti-apartheid south. The inequities of life in South Africa among blacks in the new regime led some to strike out at those less numerous and therefore less powerful than themselves. The phenomenon of assigning blame for one’s inability to escape one’s condition is something from which we can all learn.
The mere process of recounting the thought processes of a young, unschooled but hardworking boy in duress tells us something of the conditions in which he operated, as well as how someone makes decisions in an environment of extremely circumscribed horizons: he held a very “now” worldview that held little past and an unknowable future. When he married, at nineteen, Asad's developed his grasp of concept of 'future':
"Something happened when I knew that I was going to have children with Foosiya...For the first time, I saw that my life was a series of decisions. I saw that each decision decided who I was going to be from now on. That is a big realization, brother. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. It is the sort of realization that can make you fall over."Asad had a strong sense of right and wrong, of decency and fairness, of propriety and one wonders where it came from:
"My first feeling about [South African] blacks was that they have too much sex,” he recalls. "I have now adjusted a little. But back then, what I saw on the streets, to me was illegal, uncultural, a shame to one’s reputation. A man holding a woman who is not his wife, squeezing her bum, putting his hand up her skirt. I could not even look at them, I would look to the side…Even if you consider many different beliefs about the world," he says, "nobody allows that. Christianity, whatever it is nobody’s culture. It is a democracy here. You say nothing. It is how they are. But I tell you, they do not get this from their religion. It is not in their culture either. But they do it. They have lost what their ancestors once knew. Christian, Jewish, doesn’t allow it. Nobody allows it."
One cannot help but wonder if most people, even those who persecuted Asad, would also exhibit such constraints on behaviors if questioned closely enough. Asad and his fellow entrepreneurial Somalis had contempt for South African blacks:
"We think of [South African] black people as teenagers," Asad tells me bluntly. "Their democracy is so new and precious to them, but it confuses them. When it does not bring them what they want, they get violent."The blacks had reasons for their anger which eventually manifest in violence: much of the profit earned from small business initiatives owned by Somalis and other economic immigrants was thought to be repatriated and thus exported, sucking their communities dry. The reasons for the poverty of their communities undoubtedly had other larger and more pertinent causes, but the economic immigrants were easier targets than a political system or institutionalized societal inequalities. It is startling to discover, in this winding story set on a distant continent, ourselves. Such is Steinberg’s narrative skill: allowing us to see the general in the personal.
Writing a book about the remembered bits of a man’s life is fraught with difficulty, which Steinberg frankly acknowledges at several stages. His struggle alone is enlightening: the questions he puts to Asad are an attempt to help Asad remember how he felt at different stages of his life. Asad kept a Red Book, a kind of occasional diary in his teen years, which he eventually lost in his border-crossings:
"It was a record of the very best and the very worst. Like the day Foosiya agreed to marry me. I wrote down the date, the time. And on days when I had nothing and saw no future, I would write down the date on which I had that thought."But often Asad simply did not want to divulge the depth of his feeling on a topic. It was too closely held and perhaps too easily misunderstood, but it formed his character. We have to make do with the man himself.
This narrative nonfiction is being released in paperback today by Vintage, a division of Penguin Random House. PRH currently has a 20% off pre-holiday sale (with free shipping!) until the end of the year, so don’t hold back on the opportunity to have a look at a fascinating, detailed, and unusual portrait of a man living on the second-most populous continent on earth.
July 29, 2016
My first goodreads review. I choose this one because i hope this book will get some more attention as i think it deserves it!
The story is about a resilient young man named Asad. He spend most of his live finding a place where he can settle down and be safe from harm. From Somalia to South Africa everywhere he goes he needs to find a way to survive. I felt inspired from his actions and his way of getting over things.
My trip to South Africa made me feel a bit like Asad must have felt. A lot of hatred around you. People that can treat you different from day to day. A lot of beauty and a whole lot of sorrow.
This book is well written with a lot of nice insights and it finds a way to create a good picture of his travels. If you want to read a book about a persistant human being then please read this!
The story is about a resilient young man named Asad. He spend most of his live finding a place where he can settle down and be safe from harm. From Somalia to South Africa everywhere he goes he needs to find a way to survive. I felt inspired from his actions and his way of getting over things.
My trip to South Africa made me feel a bit like Asad must have felt. A lot of hatred around you. People that can treat you different from day to day. A lot of beauty and a whole lot of sorrow.
This book is well written with a lot of nice insights and it finds a way to create a good picture of his travels. If you want to read a book about a persistant human being then please read this!
December 16, 2014
An excellent book! Well researched with unbelievable insight and sensitivity for all the cultures involved in this story. The story is told through the eyes of the people involved while walking in their shoes. Some parts of the story do make your jaw drop and pull at your heart strings. After I read this book I felt like I had been on a journey of epic proportions and crossed the barriers of culture, language, war, and geography. I would rate this book a 10 out of five. I cannot say enough good about it - just don't have the words.
March 29, 2016
The first word that comes to mind when I think of Somalia is pirates. I was completely unaware of the huge amount of Somalis in SA and just how much they were the targets of the xenophobic attacks of 2008.
My feelings about illegal immigrants are in complete juxtaposition.
Yes they are non-tax paying and illegal which puts a strain on a country’s infrastructure, public services, job opportunities and is a headache for even the most bountiful first world country’s political and socio economic balance. But after following Asad’s journey and his life that has always been full of hate, prejudice and a fight to survive I cannot help but also feel some empathy for these people who run to South Africa at the hope of a safe haven.
The author makes sure not to paint a picture of pure victimization of Asad and his fellow Somalis and he also allowed for stories that showed their own faults in thought and action during the xenophobic attacks.
Asad’s story starts when he is 8 years old just after his father disappeared and he witnessed the killing of his mother. After being separated from his uncle he ends up living on the streets, moving from place to place to survive. His nomadic upbringing takes him to Ethiopia where, by chance, he meets Rooda who took him under his wing and tried to train him as a truck driver assistant. I don’t want to get into too much detail about this however these sections gave me a much better understanding of the political unrest and culture of both Somalia and Ethiopia at that time.
It never occurred to me just how much blind trust illegal immigrants have to give to the smugglers and Asad’s journey from the Horn of Africa (Somali) to SA made for fascinating and nerve wrecking reading.
For the first time I understand why Somalis are such successful Spaza shopkeepers, working 18-hour days, knowing their customers better than they know themselves and only leave the shop to go to the bathroom.
The story also touches on the Saab, a sub culture within the Somali tribal system, a people utterly rejected by their countrymen for generation upon generation and no way to redeem themselves.
The story is not just filled with horrors and loss (although there is plenty of that) it also has unexpected sections of humor and hope. Foosiay’s story was intriguing giving insight into the lives of female Somalis and a lot of stories that involved her made me laugh. She is truly a firecracker.
Highly recommended for all South Africans as well as anyone wanting to understand the problem child Africa sometimes seems to be.
My feelings about illegal immigrants are in complete juxtaposition.
Yes they are non-tax paying and illegal which puts a strain on a country’s infrastructure, public services, job opportunities and is a headache for even the most bountiful first world country’s political and socio economic balance. But after following Asad’s journey and his life that has always been full of hate, prejudice and a fight to survive I cannot help but also feel some empathy for these people who run to South Africa at the hope of a safe haven.
The author makes sure not to paint a picture of pure victimization of Asad and his fellow Somalis and he also allowed for stories that showed their own faults in thought and action during the xenophobic attacks.
Asad’s story starts when he is 8 years old just after his father disappeared and he witnessed the killing of his mother. After being separated from his uncle he ends up living on the streets, moving from place to place to survive. His nomadic upbringing takes him to Ethiopia where, by chance, he meets Rooda who took him under his wing and tried to train him as a truck driver assistant. I don’t want to get into too much detail about this however these sections gave me a much better understanding of the political unrest and culture of both Somalia and Ethiopia at that time.
It never occurred to me just how much blind trust illegal immigrants have to give to the smugglers and Asad’s journey from the Horn of Africa (Somali) to SA made for fascinating and nerve wrecking reading.
For the first time I understand why Somalis are such successful Spaza shopkeepers, working 18-hour days, knowing their customers better than they know themselves and only leave the shop to go to the bathroom.
The story also touches on the Saab, a sub culture within the Somali tribal system, a people utterly rejected by their countrymen for generation upon generation and no way to redeem themselves.
The story is not just filled with horrors and loss (although there is plenty of that) it also has unexpected sections of humor and hope. Foosiay’s story was intriguing giving insight into the lives of female Somalis and a lot of stories that involved her made me laugh. She is truly a firecracker.
Highly recommended for all South Africans as well as anyone wanting to understand the problem child Africa sometimes seems to be.
March 5, 2015
A Man of Good Hope by Jonny Steinberg
A Man of Good Hope is the story of a Somalian child who at the age of eight was left an orphan when his mother was murdered in front of him and his father was forced into hiding. I followed his migration from Ethiopia to Somalia, to Kenya, to South Africa and finally to the United States. In South Africa his dream for freedom and prosperity was short lived as he was met with more violence and xenophobia. He was placed in Blikkiesdorp, “described as cape Town’s asshole through which the city shits.” Steinberg made a thorough study of Asad’s life through extensive interviews and goes as far to visit the places where Asad had lived and worked. Most of the interviews took place in Steinberg’s car because in the car Asad could keep an eye open for potential threats around them. It is the story of Asad Abdullah and his tremendous courage and undistinguishable hope.
A Man of Good Hope is the story of a Somalian child who at the age of eight was left an orphan when his mother was murdered in front of him and his father was forced into hiding. I followed his migration from Ethiopia to Somalia, to Kenya, to South Africa and finally to the United States. In South Africa his dream for freedom and prosperity was short lived as he was met with more violence and xenophobia. He was placed in Blikkiesdorp, “described as cape Town’s asshole through which the city shits.” Steinberg made a thorough study of Asad’s life through extensive interviews and goes as far to visit the places where Asad had lived and worked. Most of the interviews took place in Steinberg’s car because in the car Asad could keep an eye open for potential threats around them. It is the story of Asad Abdullah and his tremendous courage and undistinguishable hope.
May 7, 2015
how to make sense of the insensible that is war refugees 'illegal' immigration racism outsiders extreme poverty hope, that is what author steinberg does chronicling the epic life of somalian asad as he loses his family when very young and eventually makes it to south africa and tries to live in hope
i think maybe a unique bio in its breadth of emotion detail and sheer epic humanness
i think maybe a unique bio in its breadth of emotion detail and sheer epic humanness
November 17, 2014
Jonny Steinberg is doing what he does best: Describing the South African condition with precise insight and a writer’s flair.
I can’t remember the question I asked him as we sat down to talk, but my notes contain his pithy answer: “There’s this in-between state of knowing and not knowing at the same time and so much of South African life is lived in that state.”
I was talking to him in the lounge of Rosebank’s Park Hyatt hotel, home of deal-makers, socially-networking functionaries, day-tripping financiers and high-end tourists - a million miles from the rough streets of the horn of Africa and the townships where Steinberg’s new book A Man of Good Hope plays itself out.
The cover of the book’s local edition depicts a neat buttoned up shirt over the familiar silhouette of Cape Town’s mountains, the final South African destination of the book’s Somali protagonist, Asad.
His journey which encompasses Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and a string of countries on a long trek southwards is the subject of this quiet, precise narrative.
Steinberg takes us inside Asad’s world, beginning with his uprooting in the wake of the Somalian civil war and following his restless attempts to build a new life in refugee camps, in the urban ghettos of Kenya and in rural Ethiopia.
His decision to give it all up and bet everything on a long trek to South Africa, which he sees as a land of glittering opportunity, ultimately leads him to Cape Town where he was introduced to Steinberg who was looking to interview a Somali immigrant.
What followed were many hours of interviews – mostly conducted inside a parked car near Asad’s shop – during which Steinberg put together the story of his life.
Steinberg shows us South Africa through the eyes of an arriving African immigrant. His sparse but descriptive words give us an eerie out-of-body sensation as we see ourselves on display in these two passages:
“The highway widened and was double-laned on both sides and was full of traffic. The surface of the road itself was as smooth as a varnished table, as if it had been laid yesterday. And the cars on the road were also new, like they had just come off the factory floor. Beyond the roadside were straight rows of houses with deep terracotta tiles on their roofs, thick beige paint on their walls and manicured gardens. They too looked as if they had just been built.”
Ten days later, Asad sees through the façade of limitless wealth. “Every town the bus passed, he noticed, was divided into two distinct sections. There was always a settlement on the outskirts: it consisted of straight, narrow identical houses, each as modest as the next. And it was always in darkness, save for the occasional blinding light mounted on a towering pylon.”
Asad soon discovers – too his disappointment – that his place is in the settlements on the outskirts.
Steinberg tells me: “It takes looking at it through somebody like Asad’s eyes to see it in all its spectacular strangeness.
“Coming from afar we must look bizarre. We have the crazy racially-heirarchised society. We’ve formally moved on from it, but the structure has remained the same. We don’t really like to talk about the fact that everything but nothing has changed at the same time.”
Asad joins other Somalis who have occupied the spaza shop niche in the townships, selling cheap goods through small windows in shacks to customers who view him with no affection.
Steinberg observes that, unlike South African traders, who are symbols of hope, of making it, the Somali’s are not liked or admired by their customers.
“What they do is they settle themselves among very, very poor people and all they do is they make money. The result is that they’re stripped bare, they are simply loathed.
Asad, he says, is “so utterly disinvested”.
“His relation to the world around him is utterly instrumental. Seeing South Africa through those eyes – through eyes that really did not care – was tough.”
The loathing soon translates itself into violence, at first sporadic and ultimately organized as local communities turn on the traders.
When Steinberg encounters Asad in Cape Town, he has been a victim of this violence.
“I don’t think xenophobia like this would have been conceivable under apartheid. Black people from across the borders streamed into South Africa for generations and were generally integrated into black South Africa.
“Xenophobia is a dark by-product of citizenship – ‘this place is ours now and its not yours’. It’s only since democracy that those lines between urban insiders and outsiders are about those who hold citizenship and those who don’t.”
A Man of Good Hope is Steinberg at his best: Holding the narrative tight while gently but precisely illuminating the social issues that drive it forward.
Steinberg says he has been inspired by reading the work of anthropologist Michael Jackson.
“He’s managed to weld together standard anthropology – he did ethnographies in Sierra Leone for many years - and married it to existential philosophy which asks these questions about the burden of how to live a human life and make it meaningful.”
“It just dawned on me reading this man’s work that what I’ve been trying to do, book after book after book is to write about somebody whose very different from me. Try and get under their skin. Try to see what it means to be a human being for them.
I can’t remember the question I asked him as we sat down to talk, but my notes contain his pithy answer: “There’s this in-between state of knowing and not knowing at the same time and so much of South African life is lived in that state.”
I was talking to him in the lounge of Rosebank’s Park Hyatt hotel, home of deal-makers, socially-networking functionaries, day-tripping financiers and high-end tourists - a million miles from the rough streets of the horn of Africa and the townships where Steinberg’s new book A Man of Good Hope plays itself out.
The cover of the book’s local edition depicts a neat buttoned up shirt over the familiar silhouette of Cape Town’s mountains, the final South African destination of the book’s Somali protagonist, Asad.
His journey which encompasses Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and a string of countries on a long trek southwards is the subject of this quiet, precise narrative.
Steinberg takes us inside Asad’s world, beginning with his uprooting in the wake of the Somalian civil war and following his restless attempts to build a new life in refugee camps, in the urban ghettos of Kenya and in rural Ethiopia.
His decision to give it all up and bet everything on a long trek to South Africa, which he sees as a land of glittering opportunity, ultimately leads him to Cape Town where he was introduced to Steinberg who was looking to interview a Somali immigrant.
What followed were many hours of interviews – mostly conducted inside a parked car near Asad’s shop – during which Steinberg put together the story of his life.
Steinberg shows us South Africa through the eyes of an arriving African immigrant. His sparse but descriptive words give us an eerie out-of-body sensation as we see ourselves on display in these two passages:
“The highway widened and was double-laned on both sides and was full of traffic. The surface of the road itself was as smooth as a varnished table, as if it had been laid yesterday. And the cars on the road were also new, like they had just come off the factory floor. Beyond the roadside were straight rows of houses with deep terracotta tiles on their roofs, thick beige paint on their walls and manicured gardens. They too looked as if they had just been built.”
Ten days later, Asad sees through the façade of limitless wealth. “Every town the bus passed, he noticed, was divided into two distinct sections. There was always a settlement on the outskirts: it consisted of straight, narrow identical houses, each as modest as the next. And it was always in darkness, save for the occasional blinding light mounted on a towering pylon.”
Asad soon discovers – too his disappointment – that his place is in the settlements on the outskirts.
Steinberg tells me: “It takes looking at it through somebody like Asad’s eyes to see it in all its spectacular strangeness.
“Coming from afar we must look bizarre. We have the crazy racially-heirarchised society. We’ve formally moved on from it, but the structure has remained the same. We don’t really like to talk about the fact that everything but nothing has changed at the same time.”
Asad joins other Somalis who have occupied the spaza shop niche in the townships, selling cheap goods through small windows in shacks to customers who view him with no affection.
Steinberg observes that, unlike South African traders, who are symbols of hope, of making it, the Somali’s are not liked or admired by their customers.
“What they do is they settle themselves among very, very poor people and all they do is they make money. The result is that they’re stripped bare, they are simply loathed.
Asad, he says, is “so utterly disinvested”.
“His relation to the world around him is utterly instrumental. Seeing South Africa through those eyes – through eyes that really did not care – was tough.”
The loathing soon translates itself into violence, at first sporadic and ultimately organized as local communities turn on the traders.
When Steinberg encounters Asad in Cape Town, he has been a victim of this violence.
“I don’t think xenophobia like this would have been conceivable under apartheid. Black people from across the borders streamed into South Africa for generations and were generally integrated into black South Africa.
“Xenophobia is a dark by-product of citizenship – ‘this place is ours now and its not yours’. It’s only since democracy that those lines between urban insiders and outsiders are about those who hold citizenship and those who don’t.”
A Man of Good Hope is Steinberg at his best: Holding the narrative tight while gently but precisely illuminating the social issues that drive it forward.
Steinberg says he has been inspired by reading the work of anthropologist Michael Jackson.
“He’s managed to weld together standard anthropology – he did ethnographies in Sierra Leone for many years - and married it to existential philosophy which asks these questions about the burden of how to live a human life and make it meaningful.”
“It just dawned on me reading this man’s work that what I’ve been trying to do, book after book after book is to write about somebody whose very different from me. Try and get under their skin. Try to see what it means to be a human being for them.
October 20, 2014
I'm not up for a review, but this is an astonishingly good book about the travails of a Somali youngster, "kicked like a stone in a road", all the way down the African continent. No feel good story, this has loss, I'll-feeling and foul play in at least equal measure to resilience, tenacity and will. It left me with no great impression of my countrymen, by with vast respect for the ties of kinship that support any diaspora. I heartily recommend it.
February 4, 2019
Fantastic, easy to read story of an African immigrant. Very informative about some African culture and problems. Steinberg managed to both portrait the results of civil war on a country (in this case Somalia) but the effects it has on the continent. Asad, whose story it mainly is, is very sympathetically portrait, both his good and bad sides. Steinberg clearly shows where Asad and his family are victims of what is going on in their country and of the result of Somali or other African culture, but he also shows Asad's resilience and clear fight not to be a victim anymore but to direct his own right. Through the wonderful Foosiya, Asad's first wife you can also see a different view of Afrianan/Somali women than is usually portrait. Their relationship is very interesting, with Asad clearly from the beginning (when he still had not very honourable design on her) recognizing and acknowledging Foosyia's superior intellect and ability. When she does not like where he leads, she takes her and their children's life into her own hand.
Brilliant read and entertaining read. Would recommend it to anyone.
Brilliant read and entertaining read. Would recommend it to anyone.
August 5, 2022
Bijzondere biografie van een Somalische vluchteling. Zowel de schrijfstijl als het onderzoek van Steinberg is van grote klasse.
February 10, 2015
The story of Asad, a Somali immigrant in South Africa as told to a journalist and writer.
It was amazing to travel with him from the moment he has to leave Mogadishu, hope and fear along with him and get angry at the unfair turns his life sometimes took... I appreciated instances of his insight and morality- such as when he comments on the position of women in Somali society, when he is ashamed of his community's ostracisation of people from an 'unclean/rootless' clan.
Also revealing was to see places I knew (Eastleigh, Langata) or had been in (Cape Town) through his eyes- to see them in a different way.
A relative's comment regarding what he and other Somalis go through in South Africa, was shock at how foreigners are treated. That no-one, not one single person stood up for the foreigners. Not One. That is rough. And it causes you like Asad to posit possible reasons of how a people can come to the point where bad things are committed by their own and they don't react to help, simply because the one affected is a foreigner.
I wonder how well Asad will manage in the US though. There is less room for informal innovation there at least of the kind that got him through, and helped him flourish in, all those other places he was in.
A wonderful book though.
It was amazing to travel with him from the moment he has to leave Mogadishu, hope and fear along with him and get angry at the unfair turns his life sometimes took... I appreciated instances of his insight and morality- such as when he comments on the position of women in Somali society, when he is ashamed of his community's ostracisation of people from an 'unclean/rootless' clan.
Also revealing was to see places I knew (Eastleigh, Langata) or had been in (Cape Town) through his eyes- to see them in a different way.
A relative's comment regarding what he and other Somalis go through in South Africa, was shock at how foreigners are treated. That no-one, not one single person stood up for the foreigners. Not One. That is rough. And it causes you like Asad to posit possible reasons of how a people can come to the point where bad things are committed by their own and they don't react to help, simply because the one affected is a foreigner.
I wonder how well Asad will manage in the US though. There is less room for informal innovation there at least of the kind that got him through, and helped him flourish in, all those other places he was in.
A wonderful book though.
April 28, 2019
If you want to learn what life is like for those who are forgotten, lost & oppressed - this is a great read. It's the story of Asad, a refugee who lost his mother as a young boy (she was shot in front of him) and his journey to find a place and a home in the world. Along the way he is beaten, betrayed and pushed to the very margins of society on numerous occasions. But despite it all, he makes the best of it at every moment, and keeps working to make the best of the situation he is in. It's a story of entrepreneurship, innovation, resilience & so much more. I really enjoyed Steinberg's voice being included too, to offer the story of him writing the book & where he felt we were missing details, relevant to Asad's story. I'd highly recommend this, to help you understand & learn what life is like for those who are way way way less fortunate than those of us living in the "developed" world.
August 2, 2024
Great story about a Somali of ogadeni lineage fleeing Somalia during the civil war. I did not realize how intense the xenophobia of black south Africans was towards Somalis making a living to survive.
February 26, 2022
Once again, I am reminded of my privilege. To be a South African has its problems. But fleeing to South Africa from Africa is terrifying. I will never forget this book.
June 16, 2018
Incredible story of survival amongst terrible odds. The title is a good one--it is hard to believe that any human could stay hopeful with all that the author had to deal with--it could also be called "A Good Man of Hope."
October 31, 2014
I won this book in a first reads giveaway and initially I could not get into it. I forced myself to focus and to read just a little more and I became hooked. This story is so tragic and almost unbelievable to someone living outside of the world in which Asad lived. To imagine the loss and fear that he must have endured on a daily basis for the majority of his adolescence, it put my own life and my blessings into perspective while making me mourn for him and his lack of stability. I could not imagine making the choices that he made, and to see the resilience that he had after each obstacle he faced was inspiring. At times I wanted to know what he was thinking during these situations and I wanted to know what he really felt for the people he encountered on his journey. It was not an easy book to read because I would have to stop and think about his experiences and to wonder how a person finds the strength to go on with his life after each horrific thing would occur. This book will make you appreciate what you have been given.
March 18, 2015
This is a remarkable non fiction novel follows 8 year old Asad, born in Somalia and ripped from his country when his mom is murdered before his eyes and his father has escaped to avoid capture. We follow his travels from Somalia, to Kenya, to Ethiopa and making his way to various parts of South Africa. All of this is captured by a journalist who after meeting Asad, spends years listening to his story in piecemeal and returning to his various haunts trying to put together a coherent narrative of his tragic life. Despite his devastating life, Asad's dogged determination to better himself without any formal schooling is astonishing. Against all odds, he continues to forge ahead with a level of tenacity I found commendable.I learned a lot more about clan and tribal affinities and dissimilarities ,elevating my consciousness to a new level, especially after visiting some of the townships in Capetown. This is not for those who are easily upset,but if you want to elevate your knowledge and willing to push through, this is an important and timely novel.
March 16, 2015
This is not an easy book to read. Man's inhumanity to man is very hard to stomach. However, the mere fact that this man of good hope will receive royalties from this book is reason enough to buy and to read it. A must read!
October 11, 2015
If St. Cloud, Minnesota ever does a "One City, One Book" program, it should be with this book. This book, which preserves the voice and experience of a young Somali refugee, will do a lot to shatter stereotypes and ignorance about our Somali neighbors.
December 5, 2015
Brilliant in every way. A poignant telling of an immigrant's story. I felt equally hopeful and hopeless about Africa. So well-written.
December 6, 2020
A fascinating story of determination and the endurance of the human spirit.
February 21, 2016
There is none so honest and sober like a Jonny Steinberg book. A Man of Good Hope did not disappoint, in fact it was a welcoming chance to see myself as part of a community once on the receiving end of the cruel Apartheid system and later complicit and a silent spectator to the senseless Xenophobic attacks by South Africans on African foreign nationals. I never felt more convinced - (albeit in an idealistic naive way) - that Africa should be a country and not a continent. The author's account of Asad's story is a powerful narration and may be a contender for many literature awards.
The story is of Asad, the Somalian young man forced from his home on a journey to escape poverty, suffering and perhaps violent death through various countries enroute to Cape Town. The Somalia that he describes, gives the reader a clear understanding of the culture, politics and economic realities in Somalia. Asad begins his story when he is a witness his mother's brutal murder. He tells the story of the a Somalia gripped in power struggles, violence and poverty and where families have been destroyed, leaving in its wake, orphan children to fend for themselves.
Asad's flight from Somalia is fraught with danger and the unknown - leaving the reader at times with a bitter taste - when you recognise the opportunistic scavengers at border posts and who calls themselves "smugglers". The journey through many borders, to South Africa gives one an idea of the difficulties refugees experience in their desperation to find "safe places". The refugee is vulnerable and easily exploited.
Every stretch of this journey pays tribute to Asad's amazing and consistent Hope - attesting to the title A Man of Good Hope.
Many South African's became silent witnesses as the other half seemed to have lost their minds in the xenophobic attacks. For a long time since 2008 and 2010, I have tried to make sense of these senseless attacks and never have I read a clearer, considerate view then the one Jonny Steinberg offers "Perversely xenophobia is a product of citizenship, the claiming of a new birth right. Finally, we belong here, and that means that you do not. Some say that the perversion runs deep, that black South Africans are re-enacting the rules of the old apartheid state. Apartheid, after all, was an endless system of measuring and categorising. All human beings had to be sorted into those who belonged in South Africa's cities and who did not. Behind this frenetic sorting lay a persistent fear: that the cities were too full, too dangerous, that there were always people walking the streets who did not belong. Everyone must thus be measured and counted and put in his allotted place, for if all were to merge into an indistinguishable mass there would be no control" .
I wonder how long and how many generations later will this wound be healed or would be simply evolve into forming other ways of "measuring and sorting" each other as a people? Sadly, this human behaviour is not limited to South Africans, but all over the world today, we are witnesses to conflict, violence, wars and genocides which at some point had begun with the herd mentality of measuring, sorting and excluding.
Ultimately, Asad takes responsibility for his life, and never throughout the book do I sense that he thinks of himself as a victim of circumstances, mainly because he chooses not to see himself as such "For the first time I saw that my life was a series of decisions. I saw that each decision decided who I was going to be from now on. That is a big realisation, brother. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. It is the sort of realisation that can make you fall over".
I enjoyed reading the book because it stimulated discussion with others, but mostly it forced me to re-examine many pre-conceived thoughts about life in general, reminding me that we all have a common reason for being - The author says "At the back of all of our thought s and actions, I think, stands an image of a completed life, a sense of who we will have been at the moment of our deaths." There is none so honest and sober like a Jonny Steinberg book. A Man of Good Hope did not disappoint, in fact it was a welcoming chance to see myself as part of a community once on the receiving end of the cruel Apartheid system and later complicit and a silent spectator to the senseless Xenophobic attacks by South Africans on African foreign nationals. I never felt more convinced - (albeit in a idealistic naieve way) - that Africa should be a country and not a continent. The author's account of Asad's story is a powerful narration and may be a contender for many literature awards.
The story is of Asad, the Somalian young man forced from his home on a journey to escape poverty, suffering and perhaps violent death through various countries enroute to Cape Town. The Somalia he describes gives the reader a clear understanding of the culture, politics and economic realities in Somalia. Asad begins his story when he witness his mother's brutal murder. He tells the story of the a Somalia gripped in power struggles, violence and poverty and where families have been destroyed, leaving in it's wake orphan children to fend for themselves.
Asad's flight from Somalia is fraught with danger and the unknown - leaving the reader at times with a bitter taste - when you recognise the opportunistic scavengers at border posts and who calls themselves "smugglers". The journey through many borders enroute to South Africa gives one an idea of the difficulties refugees experience in their desparation to find "safe places". The refugee is vulnerable and easily exploited.
Every stretch of this journey pays tribute to Asad's amazing and consistant Hope - attesting to the title A Man of Good Hope.
Many South African's became silent witnesses as the other half seemed to have lost their minds in the xenophobic attacks. For a long time since 2008 and 2010, I have tried to make sense of these senseless attacks and never have I read a clearer, considerate view then the one Jonny Steinberg offers "Perversely xenophobia is a product of citizenship, the claiming of a new birthright. Finally, we belong here, and that means that you do not. Some say that he perversion runs deep, that black South Africans are re-enacting the rules of the old apartheid state. Apartheid, after all, was an endless sytem of measuring and categorising. All human being had to be sorted into those who belonged in South Africa's cities and who did not. Behind this frenetic sorting lay a persistent fear: that the cities were too full, too dangerous, that there were always people walking the streets who did not belong. Everyone must thus be measured and counted and put in his allotted place, for if all were to merge into an indistinguishable mass there would be no control" .
I wonder how long and how many generations later will this wound be healed or would be simply evolve into forming other ways of "measuring and sorting" each other? Sadly, this human behaviour is not limited to South Africans, but all over the world today, we are witnesses to conflict, violence, wars and genocides which at some point had begun with the herd mentality of measuring, sorting and excluding.
Ultimately, Asad takes responsibility for his life, and never throughout the book do I feel that he is a victim of his circumstances, mainly because he chooses not to see himself as such "For the first time I saw that my life was a series of decisions. I saw that each decision decided who I was going to be from now on. That is a big realisation, brother. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. It is the sort of realisation that can make you fall over".
I enjoyed reading the book because it stimulated discussion with others, but mostly it forced me to re-examine many pre-conceived thoughts about life in general, reminding me that we all have a common reason for being - The author says "At the back of all of our thoughts and actions, I think, stands an image of a completed life, a sense of who we will have been at the moment of our deaths."
The story is of Asad, the Somalian young man forced from his home on a journey to escape poverty, suffering and perhaps violent death through various countries enroute to Cape Town. The Somalia that he describes, gives the reader a clear understanding of the culture, politics and economic realities in Somalia. Asad begins his story when he is a witness his mother's brutal murder. He tells the story of the a Somalia gripped in power struggles, violence and poverty and where families have been destroyed, leaving in its wake, orphan children to fend for themselves.
Asad's flight from Somalia is fraught with danger and the unknown - leaving the reader at times with a bitter taste - when you recognise the opportunistic scavengers at border posts and who calls themselves "smugglers". The journey through many borders, to South Africa gives one an idea of the difficulties refugees experience in their desperation to find "safe places". The refugee is vulnerable and easily exploited.
Every stretch of this journey pays tribute to Asad's amazing and consistent Hope - attesting to the title A Man of Good Hope.
Many South African's became silent witnesses as the other half seemed to have lost their minds in the xenophobic attacks. For a long time since 2008 and 2010, I have tried to make sense of these senseless attacks and never have I read a clearer, considerate view then the one Jonny Steinberg offers "Perversely xenophobia is a product of citizenship, the claiming of a new birth right. Finally, we belong here, and that means that you do not. Some say that the perversion runs deep, that black South Africans are re-enacting the rules of the old apartheid state. Apartheid, after all, was an endless system of measuring and categorising. All human beings had to be sorted into those who belonged in South Africa's cities and who did not. Behind this frenetic sorting lay a persistent fear: that the cities were too full, too dangerous, that there were always people walking the streets who did not belong. Everyone must thus be measured and counted and put in his allotted place, for if all were to merge into an indistinguishable mass there would be no control" .
I wonder how long and how many generations later will this wound be healed or would be simply evolve into forming other ways of "measuring and sorting" each other as a people? Sadly, this human behaviour is not limited to South Africans, but all over the world today, we are witnesses to conflict, violence, wars and genocides which at some point had begun with the herd mentality of measuring, sorting and excluding.
Ultimately, Asad takes responsibility for his life, and never throughout the book do I sense that he thinks of himself as a victim of circumstances, mainly because he chooses not to see himself as such "For the first time I saw that my life was a series of decisions. I saw that each decision decided who I was going to be from now on. That is a big realisation, brother. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. It is the sort of realisation that can make you fall over".
I enjoyed reading the book because it stimulated discussion with others, but mostly it forced me to re-examine many pre-conceived thoughts about life in general, reminding me that we all have a common reason for being - The author says "At the back of all of our thought s and actions, I think, stands an image of a completed life, a sense of who we will have been at the moment of our deaths." There is none so honest and sober like a Jonny Steinberg book. A Man of Good Hope did not disappoint, in fact it was a welcoming chance to see myself as part of a community once on the receiving end of the cruel Apartheid system and later complicit and a silent spectator to the senseless Xenophobic attacks by South Africans on African foreign nationals. I never felt more convinced - (albeit in a idealistic naieve way) - that Africa should be a country and not a continent. The author's account of Asad's story is a powerful narration and may be a contender for many literature awards.
The story is of Asad, the Somalian young man forced from his home on a journey to escape poverty, suffering and perhaps violent death through various countries enroute to Cape Town. The Somalia he describes gives the reader a clear understanding of the culture, politics and economic realities in Somalia. Asad begins his story when he witness his mother's brutal murder. He tells the story of the a Somalia gripped in power struggles, violence and poverty and where families have been destroyed, leaving in it's wake orphan children to fend for themselves.
Asad's flight from Somalia is fraught with danger and the unknown - leaving the reader at times with a bitter taste - when you recognise the opportunistic scavengers at border posts and who calls themselves "smugglers". The journey through many borders enroute to South Africa gives one an idea of the difficulties refugees experience in their desparation to find "safe places". The refugee is vulnerable and easily exploited.
Every stretch of this journey pays tribute to Asad's amazing and consistant Hope - attesting to the title A Man of Good Hope.
Many South African's became silent witnesses as the other half seemed to have lost their minds in the xenophobic attacks. For a long time since 2008 and 2010, I have tried to make sense of these senseless attacks and never have I read a clearer, considerate view then the one Jonny Steinberg offers "Perversely xenophobia is a product of citizenship, the claiming of a new birthright. Finally, we belong here, and that means that you do not. Some say that he perversion runs deep, that black South Africans are re-enacting the rules of the old apartheid state. Apartheid, after all, was an endless sytem of measuring and categorising. All human being had to be sorted into those who belonged in South Africa's cities and who did not. Behind this frenetic sorting lay a persistent fear: that the cities were too full, too dangerous, that there were always people walking the streets who did not belong. Everyone must thus be measured and counted and put in his allotted place, for if all were to merge into an indistinguishable mass there would be no control" .
I wonder how long and how many generations later will this wound be healed or would be simply evolve into forming other ways of "measuring and sorting" each other? Sadly, this human behaviour is not limited to South Africans, but all over the world today, we are witnesses to conflict, violence, wars and genocides which at some point had begun with the herd mentality of measuring, sorting and excluding.
Ultimately, Asad takes responsibility for his life, and never throughout the book do I feel that he is a victim of his circumstances, mainly because he chooses not to see himself as such "For the first time I saw that my life was a series of decisions. I saw that each decision decided who I was going to be from now on. That is a big realisation, brother. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. It is the sort of realisation that can make you fall over".
I enjoyed reading the book because it stimulated discussion with others, but mostly it forced me to re-examine many pre-conceived thoughts about life in general, reminding me that we all have a common reason for being - The author says "At the back of all of our thoughts and actions, I think, stands an image of a completed life, a sense of who we will have been at the moment of our deaths."
May 26, 2017
Important as I feel that it is to tell the refugee story, for the most part I am no longer able to read many accounts of refugees; the horror of their lives overwhelms me and I find myself burrowing into a hole and have no idea how to help. This book is different (thank you, Peggy). Certainly the horrors are there, but Asad manages to find the resilience to carry on. I think much of the credit for the readability of the book is that the author is part of the story. Steinberg is very aware of the horror of Asad’s story, but he allows Asad to tell the story from his own point of view – sometimes as a 7-yea-old, abandoned child. The author is also able to let us see Asad as he sees him today – father, entrepreneur but also always on the alert for trouble, living always with fright and the possibility of flight.
This story is about the refugees from Somalia, but it is also about all refugees. Most distressing was the attitude of the repressed/poor/dispossessed people who were from the countries where Asad and his family took refuge. Asad’s fear was justifiable. It made me very aware of how different people in the U.S. view refugees. How much we have to practice revolutionary love, not only toward the refugee but towards those who hate the refugees. Many days I am not sure I am up to living my own values.
If you can only read one book about refugees, read this one. (I admit about 2/3 of the way through the book, I had to peek at the last chapters and the epilogue.)
This story is about the refugees from Somalia, but it is also about all refugees. Most distressing was the attitude of the repressed/poor/dispossessed people who were from the countries where Asad and his family took refuge. Asad’s fear was justifiable. It made me very aware of how different people in the U.S. view refugees. How much we have to practice revolutionary love, not only toward the refugee but towards those who hate the refugees. Many days I am not sure I am up to living my own values.
If you can only read one book about refugees, read this one. (I admit about 2/3 of the way through the book, I had to peek at the last chapters and the epilogue.)
November 28, 2017
4.5 stars.
I liked this book on so many levels. First, I’m always a fan of this author, so I have a bias going in.
But this book really does a great job of using the life of one Somali man as a microcosm of the refugee experience for Somalis fleeing to every corner in Africa - being stateless and wandering the continent trying to make a living, and being hard scrabble enough to be successful even after starting over time after time.
Plus, in this particular case, the subject made his way to South Africa and so came up against the constant and insidious nature of South African xenophobia against foreign Africans who face the threat of violent death every day as they try to make a living. He was also there in 2008 when a rash of xenophobic violence captured the world’s attention.
This subject went through just about every aspect of a Somali refugee story you hear, including - eventually - making it out of Africa altogether. He was also a uniquely optimistic and determined refugee, which makes for a great story. And this author does a great job telling it.
My one complaint usually about this author is his tendency to insert himself in his biographical books, and he does so here a lot. But in this case, it didn’t bother me too much because in many parts of the story it seemed necessary to provide possible insights since the subject was an interesting, and not always reliable narrator.
Great book.
I liked this book on so many levels. First, I’m always a fan of this author, so I have a bias going in.
But this book really does a great job of using the life of one Somali man as a microcosm of the refugee experience for Somalis fleeing to every corner in Africa - being stateless and wandering the continent trying to make a living, and being hard scrabble enough to be successful even after starting over time after time.
Plus, in this particular case, the subject made his way to South Africa and so came up against the constant and insidious nature of South African xenophobia against foreign Africans who face the threat of violent death every day as they try to make a living. He was also there in 2008 when a rash of xenophobic violence captured the world’s attention.
This subject went through just about every aspect of a Somali refugee story you hear, including - eventually - making it out of Africa altogether. He was also a uniquely optimistic and determined refugee, which makes for a great story. And this author does a great job telling it.
My one complaint usually about this author is his tendency to insert himself in his biographical books, and he does so here a lot. But in this case, it didn’t bother me too much because in many parts of the story it seemed necessary to provide possible insights since the subject was an interesting, and not always reliable narrator.
Great book.
March 3, 2017
This feels like the book version of The Wire. It's gripping, fascinating, well-done, sympathetic ... and makes you never, ever want to set foot in Baltimore. I mean South Africa.
This non-fiction book follows Asad as he flees violence in Somalia and gets separated from his family at a young age. He becomes part of the Somali diaspora and wanders the continent with no real purpose. That's not meant as a dig but rather to explain that the book is as much about his coming of age as it is about the extraordinary circumstances facing the people of his tribe. He is preoccupied with survival, but then once he seems to have "figured out" how to survive in one given place, he is often forced along by forces outside his control. When this does not happen, he seems to do so of his own accord on a whim. Who wouldn't? With no family, no home, no adults looking out for him for much of his life, what is there really to do? Why not head to Ethiopia? Why not head down to South Africa? Why stay anywhere, for that matter?
He even seems to get married and have kids on a whim. The book earns its title honestly, showing that Asad is always looking to move on to a better life, but he does so rather aimlessly until suddenly becoming a husband and soon after, a father. These roles give his life a purpose and a structure that it did not previously have. Of course, this happens while he is living in South Africa and facing a near inevitable violent death at the hands of his neighbors. (Did I mention I never want to go to South Africa? After finishing the book just a few days ago, in February 2017, I types some terms into Google about South African violence against foreigners to read up some more about the riots that happened in 2008. Instead I found day-old news articles about how recent unrest has officials "concerned about a possible repeat of the violent incidents that occurred in 2008." Lovely.)
I appreciated getting a better understanding of what is meant by the phrase "Somali diaspora," and even diaspora in general. I'm familiar with the dictionary definition of the term, but the book brings it into focus, within a cultural and historical context. I started the book knowing next to nothing about Africa, except that it has many ethnic tribes that don't always get along so well, and that the European colonial powers drew arbitrary borders criss-crossing the continent that really didn't help the situation. A Man of Good Hope does some coloring within that outline, and gives it a human face.
Ultimately, however, the book just left me with a bleak feeling of hopelessness. Asad is more a determined man than a hopeful one. There is a subtle but important difference. He eventually achieves what he is looking for by fleeing Africa altogether. And fuck, who can blame him? That's what I would do. But it does leave a somewhat bad taste in your mouth. Is that what Africans can hope for? To leave?
The book is well-written, well-researched, and important in the sense that this is a story that people should know. It is gripping and sympathetic. But is also bleak and in a sense, forgettable. It feels a little bit like the violent version of "poverty porn." I'm not sure it brings anything new to the table. I kind of suspect that, months from now, it will have faded in my consciousness back into the background of, "All I know about Africa is that it has many ethnic groups, illogical political borders, and lots of violence."
This non-fiction book follows Asad as he flees violence in Somalia and gets separated from his family at a young age. He becomes part of the Somali diaspora and wanders the continent with no real purpose. That's not meant as a dig but rather to explain that the book is as much about his coming of age as it is about the extraordinary circumstances facing the people of his tribe. He is preoccupied with survival, but then once he seems to have "figured out" how to survive in one given place, he is often forced along by forces outside his control. When this does not happen, he seems to do so of his own accord on a whim. Who wouldn't? With no family, no home, no adults looking out for him for much of his life, what is there really to do? Why not head to Ethiopia? Why not head down to South Africa? Why stay anywhere, for that matter?
He even seems to get married and have kids on a whim. The book earns its title honestly, showing that Asad is always looking to move on to a better life, but he does so rather aimlessly until suddenly becoming a husband and soon after, a father. These roles give his life a purpose and a structure that it did not previously have. Of course, this happens while he is living in South Africa and facing a near inevitable violent death at the hands of his neighbors. (Did I mention I never want to go to South Africa? After finishing the book just a few days ago, in February 2017, I types some terms into Google about South African violence against foreigners to read up some more about the riots that happened in 2008. Instead I found day-old news articles about how recent unrest has officials "concerned about a possible repeat of the violent incidents that occurred in 2008." Lovely.)
I appreciated getting a better understanding of what is meant by the phrase "Somali diaspora," and even diaspora in general. I'm familiar with the dictionary definition of the term, but the book brings it into focus, within a cultural and historical context. I started the book knowing next to nothing about Africa, except that it has many ethnic tribes that don't always get along so well, and that the European colonial powers drew arbitrary borders criss-crossing the continent that really didn't help the situation. A Man of Good Hope does some coloring within that outline, and gives it a human face.
Ultimately, however, the book just left me with a bleak feeling of hopelessness. Asad is more a determined man than a hopeful one. There is a subtle but important difference. He eventually achieves what he is looking for by fleeing Africa altogether. And fuck, who can blame him? That's what I would do. But it does leave a somewhat bad taste in your mouth. Is that what Africans can hope for? To leave?
The book is well-written, well-researched, and important in the sense that this is a story that people should know. It is gripping and sympathetic. But is also bleak and in a sense, forgettable. It feels a little bit like the violent version of "poverty porn." I'm not sure it brings anything new to the table. I kind of suspect that, months from now, it will have faded in my consciousness back into the background of, "All I know about Africa is that it has many ethnic groups, illogical political borders, and lots of violence."
December 13, 2021
I feel like I learnt a lot of Somali's history simply from reading this book - it wasn't a water-downed version of the sequence of events, making readers unavoidably glossing over the seemingly "minor" details. As humans we are more attune to sentiments: Asad's narrative would be a lot closer to us - especially those of the diaspora - more than a cold Britannica breakdown of the socio-historico-political backdrop. Sometimes though, I do feel like the narratorial presence of Steinberg is a little bit overwhelming, borderline intrusive, as an imposing figure to guide Assad's narrative rather than retelling of his story. He said at the epilogue, "this is not Asad's book, after all." It is Assad's story though! I do get that it is Steinberg's job to have done so, but sometimes I just wanted to shout in the void "leave the man alone, would you?!" I do like how S writes though, it flows very well. I don't know if it is his choice of literary stylistics, but I love his delineation of the Somali word 'salal' - a portrayal of the sense of disorientation. the whole experience must have pained Asad, it seems to us readers he's trying to voice the unvoiced and attempt to make sense of it. (I will edit this later)
Somali's independence: 1961 (before that, from 1940s onwards, it was colonised by the Italian and British colonialists)
Somali's independence: 1961 (before that, from 1940s onwards, it was colonised by the Italian and British colonialists)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 19, 2017
If you want to know about the “other side of the story” then this is the book for you. As a South African living in Cape Town and working in the CBD, I’m exposed to various people, cultures and accents on a daily basis. In a country with 11 official languages it’s still easy to spot a foreign national, either by their accent or clothes, I can point them out. I hear locals talking about how “they are taking our jobs” and “bringing in crime”, but do we really know what they have been through? Jonny Steinberg tells that story. Through a series of interviews, Asad’s story is captured and then told to the reader.
Be prepared to have South African society and culture reflected back to you – racisms, violence, ignorance and all. This is the story you won’t find on the news or in the newspapers, this is a real man with a real life.
Be prepared to reassess your own views of foreign nationals and the ease with which you judge those you don’t understand. In Jonny’s epilogue you’ll be forced to think about your own understanding of what it means to listen and hear, and how we listen for what we want to hear instead of what is actually there.
“And when talk is given freedom it goes everywhere. You find out about so many lives, about so may things”
Be prepared to have South African society and culture reflected back to you – racisms, violence, ignorance and all. This is the story you won’t find on the news or in the newspapers, this is a real man with a real life.
Be prepared to reassess your own views of foreign nationals and the ease with which you judge those you don’t understand. In Jonny’s epilogue you’ll be forced to think about your own understanding of what it means to listen and hear, and how we listen for what we want to hear instead of what is actually there.
“And when talk is given freedom it goes everywhere. You find out about so many lives, about so may things”
November 19, 2023
First a shout out to my GR friend, Sonja, for recommending this exceptional biography/memoir of a Somali child/man turned refugee, husband, father and his epic journey for survival through Ethiopia, Kenya and eventually South Africa. Like most Americans, I am fairly ignorant about recent history in many African countries and this memoir "as told to" the author was truly eye-opening. We follow Assad's challenging odyssey from Mogadishu (where is mother is shot dead in front of him) as he struggles for survival. I had some inkling that there were tribal and caste divisions in Africa, but was amazed at the levels of black-on black violence, the xenophobia and the anti-immigrant attitudes (that are frankly now invading the US.) While the book is often sad and horrific, there are great episodes of resilience, tender moments and insights as Assad becomes more self aware while sharing his story. The author writes beautifully and brings Assad and the others to real life. He is careful to let the reader know when he is sharing his own opinions or Assad's. It's a sensitive depiction of the terrible existence most refugees experience as they try to eke out simply basic survival in horrendous conditions. Looking forward to reading more about this continent. Thank you, Sonja!
December 15, 2017
A hauntingly beautiful book that left me in tears, speechless and galvanised. I want everyone I know to read this book. If you have any interest in humans, I can't see how you would fail to be affected by the story of Asad.
I was incredibly moved by the life story of Asad himself, someone of a similar age to myself but whose life could not be more different. I was also impressed by the authors ability to humanise the 'plight of the refugee'. As the (disgusting) furore over the past few years regarding refugees having the audacity to arrive in Europe with a mobile phone showed; from the warmth of our UK homes it is too easy to imagine refugees homogeneously as extremely poor victims with no control over their own destiny. Or even, that if they are not painfully poor with no control of their destiny, they are not *really* refugees. If you do think this way, this book is something you need to read even more so than if you're a person who finds this opinion abhorrent.
Please read this book.
I was incredibly moved by the life story of Asad himself, someone of a similar age to myself but whose life could not be more different. I was also impressed by the authors ability to humanise the 'plight of the refugee'. As the (disgusting) furore over the past few years regarding refugees having the audacity to arrive in Europe with a mobile phone showed; from the warmth of our UK homes it is too easy to imagine refugees homogeneously as extremely poor victims with no control over their own destiny. Or even, that if they are not painfully poor with no control of their destiny, they are not *really* refugees. If you do think this way, this book is something you need to read even more so than if you're a person who finds this opinion abhorrent.
Please read this book.
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