Hilary Mantel writes:

Helen Epstein is an American molecular biologist who became involved in Aids studies when she went to Uganda in 1993 to work on a vaccine, her role being to determine which sub-types of HIV were prevalent there. Since then, she has visited, studied and written about the other countries in sub-Saharan Africa affected by the crisis. None of these countries can act as a case study. Each has a different experience of colonialism, a different narrative of independence, a different self-image; accordingly, the epidemic has been viewed differently, tackled differently. Her well-organised book is practical, concrete and full of hard information, but it lacks nothing in subtlety; she is conscious of the ambivalence and complexity that hedge all discussion of Aids.

(LRB 20 September 2007)

Viking | paperback 326 pp. |ISBN: 9780670913565