28: Stories of AIDS in AfricaFrom one of our most widely read, award-winning journalists – comes the powerful, unputdownable story of the very human cost of a global pandemic of staggering scope and scale. It is essential reading for our times. In 28, Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail’s Africa Bureau Chief, puts a human face to the crisis created by HIV-AIDS in Africa. She has achieved, in this amazing book, something extraordinary: she writes with a power, understanding and simplicity that makes us listen, makes us understand and care. Through riveting anecdotal stories – one for each of the million people living with HIV-AIDS in Africa – Nolen explores the effects of an epidemic that well exceeds the Black Plague in magnitude. It is a calamity that is unfolding just a 747-flight away, and one that will take the lives of these 28 million without the help of massive, immediate intervention on an unprecedented scale. 28 is a timely, transformative, thoroughly accessible book that shows us definitively why we continue to ignore the growth of HIV-AIDS in Africa only at our peril and at an intolerable moral cost. 28’s stories are much more than a record of the suffering and loss in 28 emblematic lives. Here we meet women and men fighting vigorously on the frontlines of disease: Tigist Haile Michael, a smart, shy 14-year-old Ethiopian orphan fending for herself and her baby brother on the slum streets of Addis Ababa; Alice Kadzanja, an HIV-positive nurse in Malawi, where one in six adults has the virus, and where the average adult’s life expectancy is 36; and Zackie Achmat, the hero of South Africa’s politically fragmented battle against HIV-AIDS. 28 also tells us how the virus works, spreads and, ultimately, kills. It explains the connection of HIV-AIDS to conflict, famine and the collapse of states; shows us how easily treatment works for those lucky enough to get it and details the struggles of those who fight to stay alive with little support. It makes vivid the strong, desperate people doing all they can, and maintaining courage, dignity and hope against insurmountable odds. It is – in its humanity, beauty and sorrow – a call to action for all who read it. |
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activists Agnes Agrippine AIDS in Africa AIDS treatment Andualem antiretrovirals apartheid ARVs asked baby began Botswana Bukavu Burundi CD4 count cells cent Cindy clinic Combivir condoms couple died of AIDS disease doctor drugs epidemic fight friends funding Gideon global going Graça HIV infection HIV test HIV-positive HIV/AIDS hospital husband kill Kitwe knew later Lefa Lesotho living with HIV look Lydia Malawi Mandela Manuel Mbeki Médecins Sans Frontières microbicide million Moleen months mother neighbours Nelson Mandela Noé nurses orphans pandemic patients person Pontiano Prisca Rolake sexual sick Siphiwe soldiers South Africa started story Swaziland talk tell Thabo Mbeki things thought Tigist Tina told took truck tuberculosis Uganda vaccine village virus wanted weeks wife Winstone women Yohannes Zackie Zambia Zimbabwe