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

Iweala, Uzodinma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061284912 ISBN 13: 9780061284915

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2013

Synopsis

In 2005, Uzodinma Iweala stunned readers and critics alike with Beasts of No Nation, his debut novel about child soldiers in West Africa. Now his return to his native continent has produced Our Kind of People, a nonfiction account of the AIDS crisis that is every bit as startling and original.

Iweala embarks on a remarkable journey in his native Nigeria, meeting individuals and communities that are struggling daily to understand both the impact and meaning of the disease. He speaks with people from all walks of life—the ill and the healthy, doctors, nurses, truck drivers, sex workers, shopkeepers, students, parents, and children. Their testimonies are by turns uplifting, alarming, humorous, and surprising, and always unflinchingly candid.

Beautifully written and heartbreakingly honest, Our Kind of People goes behind the headlines of an unprecedented epidemic to show the real lives it affects, illuminating the scope of the crisis and a continent’s valiant struggle.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

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.

About the Author:

Uzodinma Iweala received the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, all for Beasts of No Nation. He was also 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 Lagos, Nigeria.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0061284912
• ISBN 13: 9780061284915
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240