Jonny steinberg, associate professor in the African Studies Department at Oxford University, is one of the leading interpreters of South Africa and its public institutions since the dawn of democracy. He has investigated its police and its gangsters, the drug culture and the HIV-Aids pandemic. His latest book chronicles the life of Somalia-born Asad Abdullahi, a migrant whose story is shot through with experiences almost too harrowing for words yet also of transcendent hopefulness.In sparse and pellucid prose, Steinberg touches on some of the most disturbing issues of our day: human trafficking, child soldiering, corruption, the impact of poverty, racism and xenophobia, domestic violence and the ravages of civil war and terrorism. For a year, Steinberg interviewed Abdullahi in a parked ca