28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen,"Away From Her" and the winners of the booksprice.com prize.

Category: Current Affairs - International, Political;
Non-Fiction

Format: Hardcover, 416 pages

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Pub Date: April 24, 2007

Price: $34.95

Author's Website: www.28stories.com

Globe and Mail special feature on AIDS




A is for AIDS; B is for beautiful; C is for Chinua Achebe; D is for diamonds and E is for the high cheek-boned Ethiopians....Africa is known for many things, but the one issue Africa needs the world to know about right now is that there are 28 million HIV-infected people in Africa (800 people die of AIDS everyday in Africa) and unless something is done it is going to ravage the continent. Yes, I know about donor fatigue and numbing, I suffered from it too, but if you read this book of 28 Stories (one story for every million sufferers) you will change your heart and mind.

The author of these stirring 28 stories is Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent and indeed perhaps the lone reporter in the world to report solely on AIDS . There are two groups of people in this book, the ones whose stories are told because they impart political, medical, social, physiological and economic information about the disease which is necessary for the reader to know and understand and the others are stories of people actually known to the author, people who are went public with their HIV diagnosis and have become activists for other sufferers in Africa.

For more information on the 28 people that inspired this book please go to Stephanie Nolen's website to read about these people, some of them even have video clips. Among my favorite stories are those of Tgist Haile Michael the 14-year old orphan from a slum in Addis Ababa who was left to take care of her 7-year old brother Johannes all by herself after both parents died from AIDS and Moleen Modimu a 31-year old wife and mother dying from AIDS in Zimbabwe even though the corner pharmaceutical store has the retro-virals she needs. Mugabe's government has made it virtually impossible for any African to afford the treatment they need.

(AIDS activists demonstrate outside South Africa's Parliament in Cape Town in a Reuters file photo)

This book will get you to ask many questions of yourself and your friends, the most important one being...what can we do to lighten Africa's AIDS burden? What is it the people need? A helping hand with the eradication of poverty will go a long way, but they also need funding for schools because, in the end, education is going to be the one big thing that will make Africans want to protect themselves against this virus. Also, women's rights need to be enforced, they need to have legal protection against risky sex forced upon them by male partners or economic depression, financial independence from men should also be encouraged. This is very important when you realize that women make up 75 percent of HIV-positive Africans aged between 15-25.

Nolen's book provides a comprehensive list of AIDS care and treatment organizations in Africa and elsewhere, contact them, learn more and make the difference you know you can!

This book is the second book of the Non-Fiction challenge.





Saw a truly delightful movie on the weekend titled "Away From Her". Like the movie suggested in its promotional literature, it was a love story for grown ups. In this case the grown ups were the beautiful Julie Christie and the handsome Gordon Pinsent whose 44 year old marriage, or should I say love story, is put to the test when Christie succumbs to Alzheimer's. The movie was made by the young Canadian Sarah Polley and based on Alice Munro's short story, "The Bear Came Over The Mountain". For a truly splendid "not a review" allow me to direct you to Sanjay's Karmic Musings.




Last, but not least, we have the winners of the booklottery from booksprice.com
it's Bellezza from "DolceBellezza" and J from Jellyjules.com. Congratulations, do let me know which book you would like and I will e-mail you for your address either today or tomorrow. A big "Thank you" to everyone that participated and all the book purchasing options you gave me, you made it so interesting and so much fun! There will be more opportunities to win books, so stay tuned!

Meme, Notes On A Scandal and a chance to win a book from booksprice.com!

The beautiful and talented Nancy of Bookfoolery and Babble, aka Bookfool, has tagged me for a meme titled "8 Random Things About Me". Thanks, Nancy, it always feels so special to be considered for a tag!

Firstly, here are the rules:

1: Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3: At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4: Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged, and to read your blog.


1. When I was around 7 years or so I developed this passion for singing Bollywood songs. It didn't take much to get me to sing and my favorites were popular tunes like ' "Dum Maaro Dum", "Dil Tera Mastaana". Since the lyrics were slightly racy (ofcourse, I didn't know that) I embarrassed my poor parents no end. In case you're wondering, no, I don't sing anymore! :)

2. When I was 8 my parents moved to Goa, a city on the west coast of India which was a mecca for hippies from Europe. I was so taken up with the lifestyle of these hippies and the fact that their children never seemed to take a bath or go to school that I harbored a secret desire to be adopted by one of them. All I could think about was the splendid life I would have frolicking on the beach in the sunshine with my parents and other hippie kids. Infact, the name lotus comes from one of the hippie kids who ended up being my best friend. Lotus and her family returned to Denmark about a year after we arrived in Goa. Lotus in Denmark, if you're reading this, please contact me, we may be long lost friends!


(this lovely image of a hummingbird and a lotus was sent to me by a reader from Brazil,Rosalvo Leomeu Vidal. He paints the lotusflower as a hobby. He is also a journalist, poet and lawyer. Thank you Rosalvo!)


3. At 10 I got my first puppy. He was a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Pomeranian. He had a black muzzle and brown like the Retriever but possessed the temperament of a pom. As he grew into a dog he was always very cross and didn't seem to like children very much, maybe it's because my sister and I would chase him around the house trying to paint his snout and nails with nail varnish?

4. When I was 18 I made my first trip abroad (to visit my grandmother in England).I didn't know it then but it was to start my long love affair with travel. At 21, I got a job with British Airways and pretty much travelled the world with them.

5. I'm left-handed.

6. A year after we got married my husband and I moved to Dubai,(United Arab Emirates) where we spent 10 long years. Living in the Middle East with a whole new culture, life and way of thinking helped us grow as people in tremendous ways and also helped make us global citizens, something that can be very useful in today's world.

7. When I was in school my friends and I went to a palm reader in India as a joke and he predicted I was going to move to Canada in my early '30's. How could he have known that? To this day I wonder about that.

8.In Dec 2004, our family planned a trip to The Maldives over Christmas, fortunately for us, we were having such a good time in Dubai (our first stop) that we postponed our Maldives trip by a week to early January. On Dec 26th, Male was hit by a deadly tsunami which caused parts of the Island to be covered by sea water. I shudder to think of what might have happened had we stuck with our original plans.

In turn I tag anyone that would like to play!


In other news:



Saw "Notes on A Scandal" today. It was ok, I have to confess I much preferred the book by Zoe Heller. Guess that's why they sometimes say, never judge a book by its movie! :)


Dame Judi Dench was absolutely AMAZING though! She gave a stellar performance and I would recommend you go see the movie just for her!


If you are interested in my book review of "Notes on a Scandal", go here.





Finally, I have a question to ask all of you booklovers out there: Where do you buy your books from and why? If you make a suggestion I will put your name in a hat and you will have the chance to win one of the following books from booksprice.com ( a free service of finding the best price on books among the major online stores in the USA, Canada and Europe):


The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

The draw will be held a week from now and I will contact the winner for his/her address. Thanks in advance for participating and good luck! :)

***Update: The nice folks at booksprice.com have invited me to pick not one, but two winners, and have offered us more books to choose from. What follows is a revised list of books for the lottery :

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Storm Front: (The Dresden Files, Book 1) by Jim Butcher

So do throw your names into the hat and two lucky bloggers will get a book each!

PROVOKED (the movie)

Director:
Jag Mundhra

Cast: Aishwarya Rai,
Miranda Richardson, Naveen Andrews,
Nandita Das, Robbie
Coltrane

Release: April 2007


In 1989, Kiranjit Ahluwalia housewife of Indian(Punjabi) descent living in London, set fire to her husband, Deepak, as he lay in a drunken stupor in the bedroom of their house in Southall, London. Kiranjit admitted to killing him in self-defence (she was afraid for her life after he came close to killing her several times in their abusive 10-year marriage). She was sentenced to a life in prison because the judge ruled that self-defence could not be used in her case as her last physical beating from her husband occured more than two hours before the killing signifying that the murder was premeditated and not in self-defence....



The rest of the review is on my Anthropologist Wannabe blog.

Omkara, India's Othello

Not being a literature major I haven't read Shakespeare in much depth, but like most people, I have my favorite plays of the Bard that I will read over and over: "The Merchant of Venice", "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Twelfth Night" and last but definitely not least, "Othello". I first read "Othello" when I was 15 or 16 and I couldn't believe how darn tragic it was, since then I have read it often and every single time I come away feeling very melancholy, a feeling that somehow sits well on me especially on a grey,overcast windy day like yesterday, except, yesterday I didn't read "Othello" but rather watched the Bollywood adaptation of it titled "Omkara".

After watching Omkara last evening and "Black" the night before, I am convinced that Indian cinema has entered a brand new, exciting age...we now have a troupe of directors and actors that are keen to give us quality movies with brilliant storylines and passionate execution of those lines by actors committed to their craft. We are now seeing movies that make us go "wow" and we come away from them sated and yet wanting more.

(Ajay Devgan and Nasarudeen Shah)

Ajay Devgan, whom I always believe could whip the crown off Shahrukh's head in an instant if he really wanted to, has been perfectly cast as Omakara or Othello. I can't say he delivered the best performance in the movie (that honor has to go to Saif Ali) but to be fair to Ajay the role is such it only demanded a brooding presence, and with his smouldering eyes, intense stare and brooding good looks, who better to do that than the Devgan? Whereas the Bard's Othello was a Moor (dark-skinned and of a different race from the white Spaniards he commanded), Omkara is a half-caste, so while the racial angle may be missing, Bhardwaj has introduced something closer to home, our precoccupation with people's castes and our dismissal or veneration of them depending on where they are positioned on the caste ladder. .

Saif Ali Khan, another favorite of mine, is paan-chewing, chapped lipped, scruffy Langda Tyagi (Iago in Othello) and he delivers a strong and memorable performance ( his was also the meatiest role in the film). His role stays quite close to that of Iago's except, he is Omkara's bro-in-law in the film instead of his lieutenant, and Viveik Oberoi (Kesu) is Cassio or Omkara's successor.

Instead of Venice, Omkara is set against the milieu of political and gangster warfare in the dusty, rustic interiors of India's Uttar Pradesh and it follows a warlord's descent into sexual jealousy and the wreckage resulting from his amorous obsession. Set as it is in the western villages of Uttar Pradesh the language is a dialect of Hindi and although abound with "gaalis" (cuss words) of the very worst kind, it is perfectly and ably rendered by the cast of the film.

(Konkana and Ajay Devgan)

In Othello the object of Desdemonia's object of infedility is an embroidered handkerchief, but in Omkara, in keeping with Indian traditions and values, it has been replaced by the cummerband. Kareena Kapoor plays Desdemonia and while her acting is superb, I think the women in Omkara are totally overshadowed the powerful roles that the male actors possess.

(Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan)

Omkara is a dark movie with fierce emotions - there's strong loyalty juxtaposed with harsh betrayal, insane jealousy with unconditional love, raw passion, undying devotion, terrible recklessness, and all of these emotions in ample measure. The cinematography is fantastic, the music will blow you away, but best of all, each of the actors has put in a performance that is worth their weight in gold. Vishal Bhardwaj has truly pulled off a marvellous feat with a very worthy, and in some ways, an even more complex, Othello in "Omakra".

But I will tell you I was disappointed that Vishal Bhardwaj chose not to end the movie in typical Indian movie style (they all lived happily ever after) but chose to remain true to the story of "Othello" to the end, because as you will know, "Othello" ends on a terribly tragic note and so does this wonderful movie.

Now I'm off to see "Maqbool" which is Vishal Bhardwaj's remake of MacBeth.

In re-reading my post I realize I haven't done much of a review so for those of you interested in knowing more, let me guide you to The Storyteller's blogspot for a more detailed one, or to my favorite reviewer, Blogical Conclusion.