Children of AIDS: Africa's Orphan Crisis

by Emma Guest

Book Overview

This is the new, fully updated, first paperback edition of Emma Guest's acclaimed book that explores how the AIDS crisis has devastated the world's poorest continent, and shows how families, charities... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0745320759
• ISBN13: 9780745320755
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Very Satisfied Customer

The book was in excellent condition although it was rated "good" and I was extremely pleased with the speedy service. Thank you very much. I will look forward to doing business with you again. :)

Heart breaking - A must read

This is one of the best books I have ever read about the AIDS crises. Reading this book it is hard to believe that this is happening in our world, in the 21st century. The stories are sad and heart breaking, they bring you close to tears. This book makes you want to get up and do something for those neglected and abandoned children. It makes you realize how lucky you are if you have a roof over your head, food, clothes, good health and a family. And if all of us "lucky" people would only spend a little bit of time, love and money to help those kids, all this suffering would not be necessary. This book actually provides names & addresses/websites you can contact if you really want to help. So go out and buy this book, you don't even have to read it, just help some of those children!! This book is out of print - get it while it is still available!!!!!

If you read only one book on this topic, THIS SHOULD BE THE ONE

Emma Guest is an extraordinary writer and a superlative interviewer. In her capable hands, a tragedy of horrific proportions---almost too enormous for any one person to comprehend---is discussed through the experiences of individual human beings, so that what is a global health disaster becomes a series of brilliant essays about one person and one family at a time. Politicians and World Bank officials are wont to use vast statistics to make their points, whilst a sensitive, extraordinary writer such as Emma Guest has gone into the heart of the continent of Africa to interview, with enormous sensitivity and empathy, the hapless children who, through absolutely no action of their own, have been dealt a tragic hand. This is a rare book by a rare human being, who has used her time in Africa to elucidate the fate of millions through the stories of a well-selected few. I cannot praise this book highly enough: I can only recommend it without reservation to readers from all countries, but especially the richer nations of the planet, so that they may truly understand the crisis that is afflicting so many innocent children. A truly brilliant book.

One of the most moving books I've read for years

Occasionally in the past I've read newspaper articles reporting that there are African countries where one person in four is HIV positive, or where a third of the population is expected to die of AIDS. Somehow, these extraordinary numbers never quite seemed real to me. Until I read this book. Children of Aids is just a collection of stories, but they are all true, and they are more moving than any fiction I've read for years. There's the Kenyan girl who sells her virginity for an apple, because no one has ever given her a present. There's an extraordinary 17 year old whose parents died of AIDS and who is now left raising her brothers in a dusty South African township. And there's a Zambian grandmother who's lost five out of eight of her children to what she believes is witchcraft. Guest has taken the trouble to listen to a lot of people's stories, and she recounts them with warmth, sympathy and a page-turning narrative style. Her great achievement is to take a global calamity and show what it means for ordinary individuals.