 Steinbergs first two books "Midlands" (2002), about the murder of a white South African farmer, and "The Number" (2004), a biography of a prison gangster, won South Africa's premier non-fiction award, the "Sunday Times" Alan Paton Award.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.It was a "Washington Post" Book of the Year  and was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize.