[2] His books also include Three-Letter Plague (published as Sizwe's Test in the United States), which chronicles a young man's journey through South Africa's AIDS pandemic.

Writing in The Guardian, Margaret Busby described it as an "extraordinary, stylistically varied mix of reportage, history and biography".

[6] Steinberg's 2015 book, A Man of Good Hope, was described by Observer reviewer Ian Birrell as "an epic African saga that chronicles some fundamental modern issues such as crime, human trafficking, migration, poverty and xenophobia, while giving glimpses into the Somali clan system, repression in Ethiopia and lethal racism in townships".

Damon Galgut described it as "a devastating study of modern South Africa", while Hlonipha Mokoena named it "a masterful book that rattles your bones".

[9][10] Richard Stengel, ghostwriter of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, called it "a beautiful and immensely sad book.