Three-Letter Plague

Sizwe Magadia is 29 years of age and among the most handsome and well-educated of the men in his village in rural Transkei. Dr Hermann Reuter, a son of old South West African stock, wants to prove that, if you provide decent treatment, people will come and get it, no matter their circumstances. Sizwe has watched several neighbours grow ill and die, yet he remains reluctant to establish his own HIV status. When Hermann establishes an antiretroviral treatment programme in Sizwe's village, the two men collide - one afraid that people will turn their back on medical care, the other fearful of a world in which traditional ways have been lost. Their antagonism mirrors a battle against an epidemic that has corrupted souls as much as bodies. In this eye-opening and beautifully written account, Steinberg seeks to understand the Aids crisis in South Africa. He grapples for answers that remain just out of reach, realising that he must look within to unravel the enigma surrounding the greatest African disaster of our time.