At the age of six, Deng viewed the world – his village – with awe: his father was a hippo-hunting warrior; eagles battled in the sky above; and the god Nhialic watched all below. This tableau was shattered when he was forcibly conscripted into the Sudanese People’s Liberation Front (SPLA) and death-marched towards a training camp near the Ethiopian border. Wonderment dissolved into fear and hopelessness as he underwent a brutal training regimen and bore witness to the horrors of a hopeless war. He watched prisoners being tortured and burned. He became violently ill, emaciated, on the cusp of insanity. Flesh-eating insects burrowed inside his wounds. He watched comrades being struck by landmines, their torn bodies jolting upwards ‘like popcorn’ and showering him with viscera – all this, before the age of fifteen. After being shot in the back, he was rescued by his heroic older brother John Mac, who tirelessly sought avenues of escape for them both. Eventually, they found their way to the ‘paradise’ of Australia, as refugees.

Where others may have been consumed by trauma, Deng thrived. He learned English and eventually became an advocate for the disenfranchised, by sheer force of will. But like the shrapnel still embedded in his back, the plight of his people, and of those fleeing disastrous global conflicts, is a constant, aching reminder that his work is far from over. The deeply moving song of Deng Thiak Adut is worth listening to, and is yet to be wholly sung.