Reading Up

Here are some books I've read recently that are vaguely or specifically related to my impending sojourn:


28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (2007)
By Stephanie Nolan

Simply written, this book by Toronto’s Globe and Mail Africa bureau chief gives a glimpse into the lives of 28 very different HIV-positive people living in Africa. The epilogue is depressing.


Disgrace (2000)
By J. M. Coetzee

The many novels by this South African Nobel laureate span the colonial, apartheid, and contemporary eras of his home country (though he recently emigrated to Australia). His other best-known books are Waiting for the Barbarians (1982) and The Life and Times of Michael K (2003). This particular story is a quick read about father-daughter relationships, midlife crises, and race relations after apartheid.


Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (2000)
By Antjie Krog

This South African poet and radio journalist for the South African Broadcasting Company covered the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee starting in 1995, after the fall of apartheid. The book is a flowing mixture of history, victim and perpetrator stories, and the author's grappling with her identity as an Afrikaner in post-apartheid South Africa.

[Impressively, publicly available from the TRC website are transcripts from all committee hearings, including each personal testimony heard before the Human Rights Violations Committee, the decision made on every individual application to the Amnesty Committee, and submissions made by the major political parties and military groups regarding their role in apartheid and involvement in gross human rights violations. Fascinating stuff. And free.]


When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (2007)
By Didier Fassin

I am stuck in the first few chapters of this one, what with the hardcore social sciences jargon and the occasionally off translation from the original French. Nevertheless, I have confidence it will pick up once I get into the meatier sections that contrast the perspective of one woman dying of AIDS in her township shack with that of South Africa's controversial president, Thabo Mbeki. The author is a French professor of sociology and anthropology, and former vice president of Doctors Without Borders (inspiration for the title of this blog).


Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (1995)
It's by Nelson Mandela.

Frankly, I have yet to read it.
(It is fat and I am slow).



P.S. All these books are available at your favorite online superstore, such as Amazon or B&N, but I recommend Politics & Prose, the neighborhood bookstore where I grew up in Washington, DC. Good people.