by Liesl on Apr 23rd, 2008
Jonny Steinberg’s Three-letter Plague continues to garner enthusiastic attention locally and abroad.
This week we plucked from the cybergarden another two carrots. One’s from the blog of SA and other miscellany, Charlotte’s Web. Charlotte waxes lyrical from Germany, praising Steinberg’s “vision, intelligence and compassion.”
Rapport‘s Eben Venter, meanwhile, describes the book as sympathetic, nuanced, relevant, and always written with heart:
What Steinberg does is to follow two people – spaza shop owner Sizwe Magadla and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) doctor Hermann Reuter – during a two-year period in which the former tries to decide whether to test for AIDS or not, and the latter does his utmost to provide AIDS testing and treatment in Lusikisiki, one of South Africa’s poorest and most remote districts. What Steinberg does so well is to empathise with both men and the adversity that they face, so that, as a reader, I understood both Sizwe’s intricate cultural difficulties with acknowledging AIDS and Hermann’s Herculean challenge in ensuring adequate services for the poverty-stricken people of Lusikisiki.
Jonny Steinberg se ondersoekende joernalistiek is omvattend en volhardend. Tot dusver het ons van hom te lese gekry Midlands, oor plaasmoorde in KwaZulu-Natal, The Number oor tronkbendes in die Wes-Kaap, en nou Three-Letter Plague oor die grondliggende redes waarom beduidende getalle van ons landgenote weier om die MIV-toets te laat doen.
Steinberg gebruik dieselfde werkmetode by al drie ondersoeke. Hy loop die pad saam met ’n enkele mens en onderweg, en veral via eindelose gesprekke, dring hy deur tot die hartklop van die saak.
Book Details
Cats: Afrikaans,
Non-fiction,
Reviews,
South Africa
Tags: A Young Man’S Journey Through Africa’S Aids Epidemi,
Afrikaans,
Aids Testing,
Antiretrovirals,
ARVs,
Carrot,
Charlotte Otter,
Eben Venter,
Hermann Reuter,
Jehovah’S Witnesses,
Jonathan Ball,
jonny steinberg,
Journalist,
Kate Marrandi,
KwaZulu-Natal,
Lusikisiki,
MéDecins Sans FrontièRes,
Msf,
Non-fiction,
Rapport,
Reviews,
Sizwe Magadla,
Sizwe’S Test,
South Africa,
Three Letter Plague,
Xhosa,
Zulu
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