Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through Africa's AIDS Epidemic

By Jonny Steinberg

Book Overview

At the age of twenty-nine, Sizwe Magadla is among the most handsome, well-educated, and richest of the men in his poverty-stricken village. Dr. Hermann Reuter, a son of old South West African stock, wants to show the world that if you provide decent treatment, people will come and get it, no matter their circumstances. Sizwe and Hermann live at the epicenter of the greatest plague of our times, the African AIDS epidemic. In South Africa alone, nearly 6 million people in a population of 46 million are HIV-positive. Already, Sizwe has watched several neighbors grow ill and die, yet he himself has pushed AIDS to the margins of his life and associates it obliquely with other people's envy, with comeuppance, and with misfortune. When Hermann Reuter establishes an antiretroviral treatment program in Sizwe's district and Sizwe discovers that close family members have the virus, the antagonism between these two figures from very different worlds -- one afraid that people will turn their backs on medical care, the other fearful of the advent of a world in which respect for traditional ways has been lost and privacy has been obliterated -- mirrors a continent-wide battle against an epidemic that has corrupted souls as much as bodies. A heartbreaking tale of shame and pride, sex and death, and a continent's battle with its demons, Steinberg's searing account is a tour-de-force of literary journalism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416552707
• ISBN13: 9781416552703
• Release Date: October 2010
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

fantastic book

want to know about how africa deals with AIDS, this book is a must read.

The best book ever written on HIV

This is the best and most enlightening book on HIV available today. Steinberg outdoes himself, especially within explaining something that is otherwise inexplicable: the high infection rate of HIV in Southern Africa. Steinberg's approach is that of a true journalist, and we are left with a complex, unjudging portrait of an incredibly intricate story laced with race, history, culture, myth, belief, medicine, superstition and politics. Buy it for everyone you know...

Brilliant

The fundamental question that Mr Steinberg wrestles with is why people may choose not to take drugs that may preempt death. His honesty, sensitivity and tenacity enable him to explore the dynamics of a rural South African community in a way that I've not encountered. And yes, the man can write.

Should be required reading for all world leaders!

Heartwrenching account of the conflicts between modern medicine and daily life in Africa in the midst of the worlds most horrific AIDS epidemic. A stirring call for action and compassion. Should be required reading for all world leaders.