Twenty-Eight

We have all seen the grim pictures of dying Africans on the news, or been momentarily shocked by the statistics; we may think we've heard all we need to know - or can bear to know - about the story of Aids in Africa. But look beyond the harrowing dispatches and the noisy headlines and something else emerges: not just a single sad story featuring countless, voiceless victims, but many different stories that haven't been told, stories of courage, determination and dignity, and each one with an individual human face. In 28, the reader meets the doctor dodging bullets as she runs a makeshift clinic in war-torn Congo, hear why Nelson Mandela decided to go public about the cause of his son's death, encounter the trucker who has spent a lifetime picking up prostitutes on the lonely highways of East Africa, and have an audience with the Botswanan beauty queen proud to be crowned Miss HIV Stigma-Free. Stephanie Nolen's eloquent and sympathetic book paints a fresh and inspiring portrait of this continent in crisis, making it impossible for us to ignore and impossible to forget.