Two-thirds of Mogadishu’s population fled when civil war came to Somalia in 1991. 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 migration that scattered Somalis throughout the sub-Saharan Africa and the world. This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story.

Serially betrayed by everyone who promised to care for him, and with his relation to others wary and tactical, he lived in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of Nairobi to the desert towns of the Ethiopian hinterland. By the time Asad had reached the cusp of adulthood, he had honed an array of wily talents. In Ethiopia he made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hard-nosed businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. Buoyed by his success, Asad made his way down the African continent to Johannesburg, South Africa, where the streets, he believed, were lined with gold. And so began a shocking adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined.