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In the preface to the book, Emma Guest describes her book as being “unapologetically anecdotal. It is the result of gently questioning people about their lives and faithfully transcribing their words.” On the back cover the stated aim of the book is printed as exploring “how the AIDS crisis has devastated the world’s poorest continent, and shows how families, charities and governments are responding to the next wave of the crisis – millions of orphans. Based on extensive interviews, Guest lets people tell their own stories.”
The product of Guest’s ‘anecdotal’ effort is Children of AIDS, a book attempting to give a voice to selected households, social workers, foster parents, international role-players, street children and members of child-headed households from South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The book, according to the author, tried to find out three things: How does AIDS affect African families?, How do Africans cope with the epidemic?, and What can others do to help?
Guest clearly defines the AIDS epidemic in Africa as “deadlier than war, deadlier than tyranny, deadlier even than malaria, AIDS is silently tearing Africa apart.” As for the impact of AIDS, Guest writes that “the epidemic is throwing millions of households into turmoil. Often the middle generation is wiped out, and children and the elderly are left to fend for themselves.” Nevertheless, Guest intends Children of AIDS to be “the story of people’s lives after AIDS.”
The essence of Children of AIDS are the ten chapters of ‘anecdotes’ Guest collected in her efforts to let ‘people tell their own stories.’ In these ten chapters Guest explores how people from various sectors in South Africa, Uganda and Zambia live ‘after AIDS.’ Among others we encounter a grandmother in Lusaka, foster parents in South Africa, a social worker in Kampala, UNICEF in Zambia and a child-headed household in Johannesburg.
Told in fluent third-person narrative, these ‘anecdotal’ chapters are intriguing to read and provide an interesting outlook on the fate and experiences of people affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern Africa. Guest’s in-depth research, or her ‘gentle questioning’ and ‘faithful transcribing,’ clearly shows as the reader is engrossed in the full extent of the effects of the epidemic on an individual’s life.
These ten integral chapters, however, are couched in-between an Introduction and a Conclusion which Guest intended to put the ten ‘anecdotal’ chapters into context. In these two straddling chapters Guest unfortunately lapses into slight bouts of naiveté and over-simplification. Guest’s choice of terminology is also occasionally obsolete.
In the Introduction Guest states somewhat crudely that the HIV/AIDS “epidemic spreads rapidly in a population when lots of heterosexual people have lots of risky sex. This is what happened in Africa.” In reference to the troops from various African countries that were embroiled in the fighting in the DRC, Guest states quite emphatically that “in the healthiest of these marauding hordes, about half of the soldiers were estimated to be HIV-positive. Among Zimbabwean troops in the Congo, the figure was perhaps 80 per cent.” To add insult to injury Guest concludes the paragraph by stating that “the devastation that these armies leave in their wake, as they cut, shoot and rape their way through the Congolese jungle, can only be guessed at.”
Guest’s use of potentially offending language also leaves much to be desired. In referring to the innocent, suffering orphan Guest uses the pronoun ‘she,’ while the dying AIDS ‘patient’ is given a male identity with the use of the generic ‘he.’ Moreover, Guest uses the obsolete term ‘sufferer’ in referring to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Guest’s deficient understanding of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa is clearly displayed when she states naively that “making noise” is really what’s needed to curtail the epidemic: “A president’s every word is broadcast on national television, so if he slips a ‘safe sex’ message into every speech it will eventually sink in.” HIV/AIDS is simply not that simplistic: for things to ‘eventually sink in’ will not be enough to fully curtail the spread of the epidemic.
In the Conclusion to the book, Guest makes such sweeping statements as “Life (in the future with the epidemic continuing as it does) will be full of delays, cancellations and funerals”; and “A whole generation is carrying a millstone of sadness from their childhood into their adult years.” In spite of this doomsday rhetoric, Guest also reflects that “Despite this catalogue of anticipated horrors, the orphan generation is unlikely to reduce Africa to anarchy.” Guest proceeds to end her book on a hopeful note: “Blood is thick, even if invaded by a virus. Far more families are valiantly struggling to care for their orphaned members than are stealing their inheritances. Amid the misery caused by AIDS, ordinary people are performing extraordinary acts of generosity.”
What value does Children of AIDS add to the burgeoning bibliography on HIV/AIDS? In short, only some interesting stories. The author collected various first-hand accounts of people living with the HIV/AIDS epidemic - and with the author’s engaging writing style these are valuable enough - but unfortunately Guest’s analysis and interpretation of her research contributes little if anything to our understanding of the epidemic in Africa.
Comprising insensitive, outmoded words, engaging in naiveté and hyperbole and offering little credible explanation, Children of AIDS gives the AIDS epidemic a somewhat dubious voice. Indeed, the book stays true to the author’s claim of being ‘unapologetically anecdotal.’ Notwithstanding Guest’s efforts of ‘gently questioning people about their lives and faithfully transcribing their words,’ in attempting to comprehend the complexities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa more than interesting anecdotes are required.
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