PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME TO LAUNCH ‘TELLING TALES’

Twenty-one of the world’s best authors and a over 10 top global publishers had teamed with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to “trumpet” a call in nine languages to build the momentum that would attract the appropriate attention to the reality of HIV/AIDS, South African Nobel Laureate and UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Nadine Gordimer said at a Headquarters press briefing to launch “Telling Tales”, a collection of short stories touching on profound life issues.

Known for her fusion of literary and political interests, Ms. Gordimer said the idea for the book had come to her as a result of concerns about the facts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Most recently, a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had caught her eye with the statistics on South Africa.  In the period 2000-2005, one of every five children was being orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS in that country and by 2010, 18 million children would be orphans.  Alarmed by the figures, and seeing entertainers like Bono making an impact by calling attention to the issue, she had asked 20 authors to donate a story representative of their talent.  They had all agreed instantly.  And with no royalties or reprint right expenses, the publisher had agreed to work with publishers around the world to distribute the book on a not-for-profit basis.

The launch, on the eve of World AIDS Day, 1 December, was part of a day-long celebration that included a book signing and United Nations reception with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as well as a public reading of stories at Symphony Space in Manhattan.  Also taking part in the briefing and other activities were authors Salman Rushdie and John Updike, UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown and Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information.

Ms. Gordimer said the book was published in the United States by the Picador paperback division of publishing icon Farrar, Straus and Giroux to make the $14 price affordable to a mass audience.  All proceeds would go to South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, winner of the 2003 Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.  The organization was founded in 1998 to help people with AIDS and HIV in Southern Africa, the region most affected by the disease.

Speaking about his contribution, Mr. Updike said he had been pleased to take part in the project since writers were unlike rock stars and more private by nature.  Once invited to join the initiative, he had found himself wanting to put his name on the line in speaking out against what really was the parallel of the Black Death of 1384.  “We live in plague times”, he said, citing global demographics, the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and its increasing occurrence in Asia.

Mr. Rushdie said the project’s true impact was its global reach.  Worldwide publication on the same day, with other translations such as Spanish still in the works, would bring home the underlying message that the world could face up to the truth and address the disease, if the myths that grew in the darkness of denial were dispelled.  The misperceptions about HIV/AIDS were incredible.  Some believed the disease was a plague introduced into the developing world by the industrialized countries, while others held that it afflicted bad Muslims.  Denial at the governmental level translated into the denial of treatment and the consequent growth of the epidemic.  In India, the spread of HIV/AIDS infection through brothels was only just becoming known.

The indifference arising from complacency was the greatest enemy in the fight against the global disease, Ms. Gordimer said in response to a question.  The feeling that the disease attacked only others was the biggest obstacle to addressing it, whether those “others” were black or gay people, drug addicts, the poor or people in Africa.  Dealing with the disease at the governmental level meant addressing the political, educational and preventive dimensions as a complete package.  One of the great lessons that UNDP’s work in the field brought out was that development depended on more that just securing money.  In the battle against AIDS, the capacity to get drugs out to those needing them had to be built.  That was linked to politics, much of the inroads being won by non-governmental organizations.

Asked to comment on how the HIV/AIDS threat fit into the future of global collective security, Mr. Updike said that technological rather than political forces were pushing the world to deal with critical issues across vast differences in perspective.

Ms. Gordimer added that the concept of globalization had been disappointing so far but if it was to work, there must be an impartial core body to take the lead in addressing the most critical issues facing the world community.  It was a pity that the world’s most powerful nation at the moment was attacking the United Nations instead of supporting its efforts, however flawed.  The Treatment Action Campaign had shown the power that a committed organization could exert by putting pressure on pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices of expensive anti-retroviral drugs when the Government had failed to do so.

The world was definitely divided right now, Mr. Rushdie added.  There was no collective action and the United Nations could be better placed to dispel the myths about the HIV/AIDS.  It could do more to publicize directly the message that it was no longer a “gay” illness and that women were getting infected at a higher rate than men.  In the hands of the United Nations, that message could get out both rapidly and cheaply, no more than the price of a pack of cigarettes.

Asked how they had selected the stories included in the book, Mr. Updike said he had focused on the impact of losing personal friends and acquaintances.  His story, “The Journey to the Dead”, conveyed his sense that AIDS had cast a dark shadow on a joyful aspect of human life.

Ms. Gordimer said that her story, “The Ultimate Safari”, was about refugees from Zimbabwe having to escape under an electrified fence.  It concerned the experience of the displaced.

Mr. Rushdie’s story, “The Firebird’s Nest”, centred on a drought in India but also dealt with the practice of wife-burning, he said.  It was about a dry place that caught fire in another of the world’s horrors that could only be dismantled by being brought to light.

Other contributing authors, who include five Nobel Laureates, are:  Chinua Achebe, Woody Allen, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Hanif Kureishi, Claudio Magris, Arthur Miller, Es’kia Mphahlele, Njabulo Ndebele, Kenzaburo Oe, Amos Oz, José Saramago, Ingo Schulze, Susan Sontag, Paul Theroux, Michel Tournier and Christa Wolf.

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