ABSTRACT
The publication A Man of Good Hope (Steinberg 2014) is an intricately detailed, 300-page account of the life of a twenty-seven-year-old Somalian refugee, Asad Abdullahi, in which language, literacy, and texts appear as central strands in the twisted trajectory of his moves across countries and finally continents. Steinberg traces his forced and traumatic flight as a five-year-old from tribal violence in Somalia to Kenya to Ethiopia and through Eritrea and Yemen while in informal and precarious employment. A later move south takes him through Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, where he ends up in Cape Town. He finally moves on to the US after surviving horrific xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Until his arrival in South Africa in his early twenties when he finally gains official status as a refugee, Asad has no legal documents entitling him to be anywhere. 1
