Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Man of Good Hope
    Unavailable
    A Man of Good Hope
    Unavailable
    A Man of Good Hope
    Ebook424 pages13 hours

    A Man of Good Hope

    By Jonny Steinberg

    5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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 militiaman, 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 sceptical 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 had 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 $1 200 into 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 of permanence on this earth. Jonny Steinberg was born and raised in South Africa. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Three-Letter Plague as well as Midlands and The Number, both of which won South Africa's premier non-fiction literary prize, the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Steinberg was also a recipient of the inaugural Windham Campbell Prizes. He teaches African Studies and Criminology at Oxford University and is an Associate at the Institute for the Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJonathan Ball Publishers
    Release dateAug 1, 2014
    ISBN9781868423217
    Unavailable
    A Man of Good Hope
    Author

    Jonny Steinberg

    Jonny Steinberg was born and bred in South Africa. His previous two books, Midlands (2002) and The Number (2004) both won South Africa's premier nonfiction literary award, the Sunday Times Alan Paton Prize. Steinberg was educated at Wits University in Johannesburg, and at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has worked as a journalist at a national daily, written scripts for television drama, and has been a consultant to the South African government on criminal justice policy. He is currently writing a book about immigrants in New York.

    Read more from Jonny Steinberg

    Related to A Man of Good Hope

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Out of Africa

      Feb 23, 2020

      Out of Africa
      2 min read

    • Article

      Wounds That Won’t Heal

      Oct 30, 2017

      Wounds That Won’t Heal
      7 min read

    • Article

      Introducing… Petr Pavel

      Apr 10, 2023

      Any military man achieving political power ought to be a cause for concern for those whose primary values are peace and democratic rights. So, a former NATO general sweeping the 2022 Czech presidential election would usually set alarm bells ringing.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Generation RESIGNATION

      Sep 29, 2021

      Generation RESIGNATION
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Shadow Of Silence

      Jan 12, 2024

      The Shadow Of Silence
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Doctor’s Journey

      Apr 19, 2024

      A Doctor’s Journey
      10 min read

    • Article

      ‘I’m Sick Of The Shaming’

      Oct 6, 2023

      SHE’S spent a significant chunk of her life getting people to open up about themselves. Love lives, tragic events, drug habits, royal fallouts, big jobs, major disappointments – Oprah Winfrey has heard them all and prised out as many details as she c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Herman Mashaba

      Apr 14, 2023

      Herman Mashaba
      7 min read

    • Article

      Andrew’s Long Shadow

      Apr 19, 2024

      MUCH has been said about how close he is to his daughters, how they’ll stand by him no matter what, how they’ve been his pillars throughout all the drama and disaster. There’s also been talk about how Prince Andrew is keen for his girls to enter the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tracing The Origin Of The Four-legged Serpent In SA Rock Art

      Sep 21, 2020

      In 1987, the former Xhosa homeland of Ciskei launched a series of first-day cover stamps and postcards depicting a giant mythical snake in the Keiskamma River. The malevolent snake or inabulele formed part of the ‘The Story of Sikulume’, recorded by

      5 min read

    • Article

      Welcome To Britain. Now What?

      Apr 1, 2022

      Welcome To Britain. Now What?
      17 min read

    • Article

      Tangle Of Church And State Roils Ukraine’s Orthodox Parishes

      Apr 17, 2019

      Ukraine’s Orthodox parishes are being riven as they decide whether to retain a traditional affiliation with Moscow or join a new national church.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Divorced & Loving It!

      Mar 21, 2024

      Divorced & Loving It!
      7 min read

    • Article

      Hot Young Widows Club

      Jun 3, 2020

      Hot Young Widows Club
      8 min read

    • Article

      I REMEMBER… Barry Humphries

      Mar 15, 2022

      I REMEMBER… Barry Humphries
      5 min read

    • Article

      Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Rising Star

      Jul 29, 2020

      The minute that I realized that I was writing for Ugandans, I didn’t have to be careful of what to say or how to write. Everything was on the table. The post Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Rising Star appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    Reviews for A Man of Good Hope

    5/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Really excellent journalism & biography & study of the life of Asad Abdullahi, a Somali who moved across the continent of Africa and the risks he took to secure a life for himself and his family. I did not want it to end, but it was so hard to put down. Great read, thought-provoking and fascinating.