About
the Book
|
About
the Book |
Telling Tales is the brainchild of South African writer Nadine Gordimer. Aware that musicians and artists have responded to human crises with benefit events and creative endeavors, the Gordimer asked 21 world class writers to contribute to this volume. All of the writers responded, providing a story without fees or expectation of royalties. The publisher's proceeds support the work of the Treatment Action Network, a nonprofit dedicated to AIDS treatment and preventative education in Southern Africa.
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Telling Tales for AIDS
I have been concerned for some time by the lack of any group action among writers to raise funds for the battle against HIV/AIDS. The disease is rampant on the African continent, yes, but it is pandemic in varying degrees of infection worldwide. We know that no country, no individual and no life-style is finally safe.
Musicians have for some years arranged and performed jazz and pop events and classical concerts to raise money and promote awareness of the millennial version of the medieval plague. Individual writers, of course, have contributed money to the various HIV/AIDS organizations; as a group, it seemed to me we have failed to do anything. Quite rightly, our traditional first concern has been to take action against restriction of freedom of expression—an issue in our professional home, so to speak, though with enormous importance globally. But the tragedy of incapacitation, suffering and death by AIDS has taken toll in our own world of the arts as well as in all others.
It’s not in the nature of our work as writers to ‘perform’ huge popular events—poetry and prose readings are hardly in that category. With a few writer friends I discussed the idea of our doing something on a scale within our abilities and the level of attention writers can expect to be associated with their work. As a consequence I decided to take the initiative to compile an anthology of short stories by well-known writers, permission for publication to be without any fee, and to be published by publishers in a number of countries, without any profit to the publisher. Expenses only to be covered. All royalties to go to HIV/AIDS agencies assisting victims of the disease.
I wrote to 20 writers asking from each a story of their own selection from their work on these terms; I received an enthusiastic response. Approaching publishers seemed more dicey. But there was the same generous response.
The 21 stories (one of my own added) are written in different ‘voices’—vividly individual styles—capturing the marvelous possibilities of the use of words by living writers. They include five Nobel Prize Winners in Literature. All have come together to bring the joy of reading to whomever takes up this unusual and remarkable collection of creative talent. The subjects are not HIV/AIDS; but the price of the pleasure of reading the stories will help succour and support its victims. Eleven publishers worldwide have decided with the authors that royalties in all countries shall go to the worst HIV/AIDS infected region in the world, Southern Africa. They feel that their readers in each country will welcome this practical sign of human solidarity. First publication by Farrar, Straus & Giroux/ Picador in the USA, Bloomsbury Publishers in England, will be followed by the translated editions.
Source: Choices Magazine
http://www.undp.org/dpa/choices/2004/sept/mdgwatch.html
Telling Tales
Nadine Gordimer, editor
Picador (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
IBSN 0-312-42404-3
“Sugar Baby” by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
“For Cletus sugar
is not simply sugar. It is what makes life bearable.”
When the Biafran province of Nigeria fought for independence in the late 1960s,
the Nigerian government withheld food and other necessities. This tale shows,
with humor and some sadness, what becomes of a man and his closest relationships
when forced to live without the things he wants and needs.
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“Death Beyond Constant Love” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)
“’We are here
for the purpose of defeating nature…We will no longer be foundlings in
our own country…We will be a different people, ladies and gentlemen, we
will be a great and happy people.’”
Campaigning for reelection in a remote South American village, Senator Onesimo
Sanchez creates a magical yet false sense of the future for the citizens. A
mixer of truth and fiction for his own personal ends, he becomes caught in a
similar web spun by an angry constituent.
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“Cell Phone” by Ingo Schulze (Germany)
“’Somebody
calls you up from Kosovo or Afghanistan or from wherever that tsunami was. Or
one of those guys who froze up on Mount Everest. You can talk with him to the
bitter end. No one can help him, but you can hear his last words…Just
imagine who all you’ll be dealing with now. Nobody has to be alone anymore.’”
A professional couple gets cell phones so they can talk only to each other.
When the husband unwittingly gives his number to a near-stranger, the couple’s
intimacy shatters, and they must find a way to reconnect.
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“The Age of Lead” by Margaret Atwood (Canada)
“There were consequences
after all; but they were the consequences to things you didn’t even know
you’d done.”
This metropolitan love story alludes to a disease like HIV-AIDS and its toll
on a generation of successful men and women. Its starkness is softened yet deepened
by the parallel story of some explorers whose bodies had been frozen in permafrost
in the Arctic.
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“The Rejection” by Woody Allen (United States)
“When Boris Ivanovich
opened the letter and read its contents he and his wife Anna turned pale. It
was a rejection of their three-year-old son Mischa by the very best nursery
school in Manhattan.”
Hilarious and hyperbolic, this story projects a tiny crisis into a lifelong
catastrophe as it reveals the anxiety projected by American parents onto their
offspring from a very young age.
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“The Ultimate Safari” by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
“Sometimes we stopped
to sleep for a little while at night. We slept close together. I don’t
know which night it was—because we were walking, walking, any time, all
the time—we heard the lions very near. Not groaning loudly the way they
did far off. Panting...you can hear they’re waiting, somewhere near.”
In war-ravaged Mozambique, a young girl crosses through a wild animal range
to a refugee camp. Innocently she conveys not only the dangers she’s encountered
but also the tender blend of horror and hope that propels her grandmother to
face each day and prepare a future for the children.