I knew the gist of Deng Thiak Adut’s story via media grabs, but I didn’t until a few days know he’d written a book: Songs of a War Boy.
(For anyone unfamiliar with Deng’s story, he was, at just seven years old, forcefully conscripted from his family and his remote village in South Sudan to fight a civil war about which he had little to no understanding. Deng subsequently spent years undergoing cruel training compounded by malnutrition, disease, very little medical treatment, and no formal education.
Some fortunate circumstances saw him rescued from his dire situation by one of his older brothers. Together they sought refuge in a Kenyan refugee camp before Australia eventually offered them a home. Through his brother’s encouragement and through Deng’s own fierce determination, Deng has gone from a child soldier who knew no English to an accomplished lawyer with his own law practice in Western Sydney. He is also, no biggie, an Archibald Prize featuree (that’s a technical term).)
In the Songs of a War Boy’s foreword, Journalist Hugh Riminton writes that ‘it is impossible, on meeting Deng now, not to be in awe of him. And that is before you know where he has been. This book tells that story […] It would be unbelievable, were it not true.’
Those unbelievable elements include how much trauma Deng has experienced in his short life and how many near misses he has had with death. Seriously, there are so many moments it’s almost incomprehensible how he survived any much less all of them. But as he outlines, that trauma haunts him—mostly at night while he’s trying to sleep.
Co-written with Ben McKelvey, Songs of a War Boy is accessible and inspiring. The way Deng describes his experiences so eloquently and so matter-of-factly is startling. And far from gratuitous or graphic—I’m squeamish as all get-up and I coped. In fact, it’s arguably the most human description I’ve yet read of what it was like to be a child soldier.
Songs are hugely important to the Dinka people from which he comes, Deng explains in the book’s opening pages. Songs are, as Deng describes them, their ‘avatars’, ‘biographies’, and how Dinka morality, culture, and laws are passed on.
But Deng doesn’t have any songs—they’re reserved for those who have undergone manhood initiation ceremonies. Ceremonies Deng missed out on because he was taken to be a boy soldier. He observes: ‘It is a strange fact, though, that war could make one less of a man.’
This book is, as the title suggests, Deng’s song (or songs). It also shows his life beyond being what could have been an all-defining role as a conscripted child soldier. As a byproduct, both the book and the speaking engagements Deng now regularly completes also go some way to changing peoples’ perceptions of refugees.
As Deng writes of his speeches: ‘I knew that people came to hear about war and sadness and a past that was so unusual for them, but I also knew that they left thinking about how normal my present was—and how much I was like them … If you can relate to me—a reformed child soldier coming from one of the most isolated and disadvantaged nations on earth—then there are few refugees in Australia that you can’t relate to.’
Without getting overtly political, at a time when it seems as though the Australian government is doing all it can to ensure we don’t relate to people seeking asylum, it’s arguably more important than ever to read books like Deng’s. And Songs of a War Child makes this far from a chore. I read it in three sittings and I finished it wanting more. My hope is that Deng writes a follow-up.
The opening of 
Burnside also explains some fascinating legal aspects, such as the poorly understood Cab Rank Rule. That is, that barristers don’t pick and choose who they represent. Rather, if they are offered a brief commensurate with a fee and legal matter related to their experience, they are obliged to accept the brief. At least, they are barring something like a conflict of interest such as that they are Jewish and are being asked to represent a neo-Nazi. So next time someone says something like ‘How can they represent such as such who’s been accused of such and such hideous crimes?’, people like me can knowledgeably (but not know-it-all-ingly) refer to the Cab Rank Rule.
I devoured 90% of 
Sprout survives against all odds, and The Hen, which contains similarly powerful stories and evoked in me similarly strong emotions as 
Given that it was a book I desperately wanted to read, I spent a lot of time, money, and energy trying not to read 
‘You need a small house, not a tiny house’ is how my friend succinctly summed up my years-long, hard-to-articulate disquiet with the whole tiny house movement. And that: ‘Often, tiny houses are tiny for the sake of being tiny’. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Like most architectural books. Small House Living Australia is basically pinterest-worthy porn. Containing a bunch of professional images that show off the architecture at its best angles, accompanied by text and basic plans, it’s inspiration for people who are—or who dream of one day—building a small but well-designed space. And as a flick-through, aesthetically appealing dream-fest, Small House Living Australia doesn’t disappoint. It makes you itch to have a plot of land on which to commission such a clever space.
