A Man of Good Hope - Rilegato

Steinberg, Jonny

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385352727 ISBN 13: 9780385352727

Casa editrice: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2015

Riassunto

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.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Alexandra Fuller, author of Scribbling the Cat
“What a brave, important book. Steinberg’s writing is so human, so humane and so honest. Through the remarkable tale of the truly astonishing character of Asad Abdullahi, Steinberg returns all of us from the despair of distance to the dignity of brotherhood. Steinberg stands shoulder to shoulder with other great writers who have also made sensible and visible so much that might otherwise remain insensible and invisible out of the political and human tragedies all too common in Africa—Michela Wong, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Ishmael Beah. Steinberg’s central question is one for all of us: what does it means to live a ‘fully human life’ and whom among us has either the courage or the luck to live that life?”

Publishers Weekly
“South African journalist Steinberg 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 Abdullahi 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....Steinberg’s thoughtful approach and Asad’s attitude of droll resilience make for a tale that any reader can appreciate.”

Booklist
“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....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)....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 with him. A remarkable story, skillfully etched.”
 
Library Journal
“Steinberg succeeds in illuminating the history, sociology, and even some of the complex politics of the Somali people dispersed throughout eastern and Southern Africa....Important for readers interested in conflicts in Africa.”
 
Publishers Weekly
“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....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.”

L'autore:

JONNY STEINBERG was born and bred in South Africa. He is the author of the critically acclaimedThree Letter Plague, published by Vintage (also published under the title Sizwe’s Test), as well as Midlands and The Number, both of which won South Africa’s premier nonfiction literary award, the Sunday Times Alan Paton Prize. Steinberg was also a recipient of one of the inaugural Windham Campbell Prizes. He teaches African Studies and Criminology at Oxford University.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0385352727
• ISBN 13: 9780385352727
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 308