Nobody Ever Said Aids: Stories and Poems from Southern Africa
Compiled and edited by Nobantu Rasebotsa
(Kwela)
Nobody Ever Said Aids: Stories and Poems from Southern Africa compiled and edited by Nobantu Rasebotsa, Meg Samuelson and Kylie Thomas (Kwela)
Much has been written about the impact of HIV/Aids on Africa, but usually from an historical or educational perspective. This book is one of the first to give us the words of those dealing with HIV/Aids in their own lives.
The stories show that there is still a huge gap between efforts to curb the spread of HIV/Aids and the people who suffer directly and indirectly from it. Nobody Ever Said Aids reveals how the pandemic looks to those living with it every day. The Fire Next Time by Nora Mumba shows that conferences and seminar topics often do not “touch individual suffering and pain”.
This sentiment is echoed in Lesley Emanuel’s Confetti, where a health worker asks what the purpose is of distributing condoms to people when the real problems are not being addressed. She sees an under-standing of people and their lives as a possible solution. A large number of people live in poverty and do not have access to resources and tools that provide sex education, and many of those already infected by HIV/Aids either do not have a stable support system or lack the financial means to acquire medication. In Everybody’s Got It, Don’t They? by Tonye Stuurman, an HIV-positive prostitute understands the risks of her job, but more pressing for her is the fact that she needs the money to support her family. The prostitutes in Girls in the Rear-View Mirror by Leila Hall have the same problem and perspective.
Many of these stories highlight the special vulnerability of women in the face of HIV/Aids: Skin Costs Extra by Achmat Dangor and Mpumi’s Assignment by Siphiwo Mahala, for instance. In Lady Killer by Vivienne Ndlovu, men sleep with women other than their partners with little thought for the women they have left at home.
Tradition blames women for the consequences of their men’s infidelity. Irene Phalula’s Kudsuzula is about a husband who takes another woman because his wife can’t give him children, and Khaya Gqibitole’s Fresh Scars is about a man who sleeps with many women in the hope that one of them will bear him a son.
In Baba’s Gifts, by Jenny Robson and Nomathandazo Zondo, a woman finds herself having to ask her husband, who migrates to the city in search of work opportunities, to use protection during intercourse. She is willing to be practical about their situation, but doesn’t have much of a choice when her husband refuses to use a condom. The truth and relevance of this scenario is reinforced in Migrant Worker’s Poem by Teboho Raboko.
We also need to understand why people would much rather live in denial rather than face the truth about the pandemic. Our Christmas Reunion by Edward Chinhanhu, Leave-Taking by Sindiwe Magona, The Harvest by Kay Brown and They Should Not See Him by Musa W Dube are poignant stories about the pain of losing a loved one. They also deal with the continued stigma attached to HIV/Aids. The poem Nobody Ever Said Aids, by Eddie Vulani Maluleke, focuses directly on denial, in contrast to the story I Hate to Disappoint You by Putseletso Mompei, who speaks about her HIV status and its stigma, despite her fears of being rejected by a man she loves as a result.
The collection also shows that people can live positively with HIV/Aids, especially if they have a support system of friends and family. This hope carries through to the end of the collection in Mthuthuzeli Isaac Skosana’s poem When I Rise.
SA writer on Booker longlist
A novel by South African writer Achmat Dangor is on the Man Booker longlist for 2004. Bookmakers William Hall put the odds of its winning at 25 to one.
Bitter Fruit, published in this country a few years ago, has now been issued in Britain by Atlantic Books, making it eligible for inclusion on the list. The judges of the prize now release a longlist well before the release of the shortlist and then the final judging and prize-giving in October. Bitter Fruit is an intense meditation on post-apartheid South Africa by an author known in this country for early works such as Waiting for Leila and more recent fiction such as Kafka’s Curse.
Given odds of 33 to one is another African author, Nigeria’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose debut novel Purple Hibiscus has impressed critics.
The favourite to win the Booker this year is David Mitchell, for his novel Cloud Atlas. It is given odds of three to one. Others on the longlist include Colm Toibin for The Master; Nicola Barker for Clear: A Transparent Novel; Susanna Clarke for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; James Hamilton Paterson for Cooking with Fernet Branca; Alan Hollinghurst for The Line of Beauty; and Nicholas Shakespeare for Snowleg.