Our Kind of People: A Continent's Challenge, A Country's Hope

Overview

HIV/AIDS has been reported as one of the most destructive diseases in recent memory, tearing apart communities and ostracizing the afflicted. But the emphasis placed on death and despair hardly captures the many and varied effects of the epidemic, or the stories of the extraordinary people who live and die under its watch. On a remarkable journey through his native Nigeria, Uzodinma Iweala opens our minds to these stories, speaking with people from all walks of life: the ill and the healthy, doctors, nurses, sex ...

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Our Kind of People: A Continent's Challenge, a Country's Hope

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More About This Book

Overview

HIV/AIDS has been reported as one of the most destructive diseases in recent memory, tearing apart communities and ostracizing the afflicted. But the emphasis placed on death and despair hardly captures the many and varied effects of the epidemic, or the stories of the extraordinary people who live and die under its watch. On a remarkable journey through his native Nigeria, Uzodinma Iweala opens our minds to these stories, speaking with people from all walks of life: the ill and the healthy, doctors, nurses, sex workers, students, parents, and children. Their testimonies are by turns uplifting, alarming, humorous, and always unflinchingly candid.

At once a deeply personal exploration of life in the face of disease and an incisive critique of our ideas of health and happiness, Our Kind of People goes behind the headlines to illuminate the scope of the crisis and the real lives it affects.

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

It seems almost possible to fully comprehend the ongoing AIDS catastrophe in Sub-Saharan Africa. Not only does the region account for more than three quarters of all AIDS deaths and 91 percent of all infections among children; the toll keeps rising. The number of Africans living with HIV is nearing 25 million and the number of AIDS living in the region already exceeds 11.5 million. Novelist Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation) now presents this modern plague not in dizzying statistics, but in the lives of men and women, healthy and ill, who are affected by it. With a sensitivity to their individual situations, he speaks with doctors and nurses; teachers, truck drivers, and shopkeepers; sex workers, widows, and widowers; students and orphans. Indeed, reading Our Kind of People, one realizes that this terrible disease registers not only among the victims that it kills, but those who it leaves waiting for death, and those it leaves behind to watch. Editor's recommendation.

The Times Literary Supplement
“In this unassuming but important book, Uzodinma Iweala gives the AIDS pandemic not just a human face but a human voice. . . . Remarkable.”
The Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A stunning inquiry into the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. . . . Iweala evokes the human cost of AIDS, and this is where Our Kind of People excels. . . . . Iweala's focus on narrative, on sharing voices and experiences, becomes an act of redemption.”
Bono
“Iweala tells the stories of those whose lives - and deaths - make up the numbers in a measured, accessible tone. The end of the story of HIV/AIDS is not yet written, but in Our Kind of People we see the beginnings of normalcy.”
The Daily Beast
“At last, an account of the AIDS crisis from the point of view of the people most affected by it—men, women and children of Africa, who are not simply victims but are heroes and scientists as well.”
The Boston Globe
“Iweala's arguments are well reasoned. By making generous use of the voices of many Africans, Iweala's writing possesses an immediacy that makes his message powerful and compelling.”
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061284915
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 7/9/2013
  • Pages: 240
  • Sales rank: 1,153,702
  • Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.54 (d)

Meet the Author

Uzodinma Iweala

Uzodinma Iweala is the author of Beasts of No Nation, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2007 he was selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, he lives in New York City and Abuja, Nigeria.

Biography

Uzodinma Iweala was born in 1982. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was a Mellon Mays Scholar and received a number of prizes for his writing, including the Eager Prize, the Horman Prize, the Le Baron Briggs Prize, and the Hoopes Prize, awarded for outstanding undergraduate thesis. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Lagos, Nigeria.

Author biography courtesy of HarperCollins.

Good To Know

Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Iweala:

"I'm really very silly, and also probably very easily amused -- though I may not seem that way when you meet me."

"I design clothes as a hobby. I started designing Nigerian-inspired formalwear because of a date I took to my junior prom in high school, who proceeded to tell me that she was going to hang out with an ex-boyfriend at a club after the dance instead of with me. She left me with all of her bags and didn't even call to say thank you when I dropped them off at her house. I spent $120 renting a tux for the night -- and after that I said, never again will I rent a tux. Now I design my own formal wear and other stuff. I also design dresses as well. I have them made in Nigeria."

"I like to fall asleep on the floor -- as long as it's carpeted. This is probably because I tend to read and write on the floor. A comfortable bed is also a wonderful thing, but wow, can a nap on the floor do wonders for your back, your day, your creativity!"

"I have two great parents and three incredible siblings -- an older sister who's in med school, and two younger brothers in college -- they put out a rap album when they were 14 and 11. Demolition was the name of the group, and the album was called TNT."

"I play jazz piano and the saxophone. I really love photography and like to take pictures. Good ways to unwind: listening to really good music of any genre in the dark -- either alone or in good company."

"I like to take Milo -- my family's the-year-old basenji and the greatest dog alive -- for walks along the C&O Canal and the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., which is really beautiful at any time of the year. I occasionally go for runs -- and by occasionally, I mean almost never. "

"I would like at some point in time to be a doctor involved in health in the developing world."

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    1. Also Known As:
      Uzodinma Chukuka Iweala
    2. Hometown:
      Potomac, Maryland
    1. Date of Birth:
      November 5, 1982
    2. Place of Birth:
      Washington, D.C.
    1. Education:
      A.B., Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude in English and American Literature and Language, 2004
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