Where is the great African AIDS novel, film or painting? Of the 40m infected worldwide by the disease, most are in Africa, where it is the cause of deep social change. In South Africa alone, over 5m people are HIV positive, and much township life now centres on weekly funerals of young victims. Hundreds of thousands are orphaned by AIDS. Life expectancy has plummeted. Yet most South African writers and artists sit eerily quiet. Perhaps the subject is too gloomy to inspire. Some artists respond charitably instead. Nadine Gordimer, a Nobel prizewinner for literature, has edited a fine volume of 21 short stories by Guenter Grass, Jose Saramago and other glitterati. All royalties of "Telling Tales" (published by Picador in America and Bloomsbury in Britain) will go to an AIDS group, the Treatment Action Campaign. Yet not a word of the contents is related to the epidemic. Why? "It is", says Ms Gordimer, "a very unhappy subject, and I want this book to sell. Beside, one can't prescribe to artists what their topics should be."
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