In the year 2000 the World Health Organization estimated that 85 percent of fifteen-year-olds in Botswana would eventually die of AIDS. In Saturday Is for Funerals we learn why that won't happen. 
 Unity Dow and Max Essex tell the true story of lives ravaged by AIDS—of orphans, bereaved parents, and widows; of families who devote most Saturdays to the burial of relatives and friends. We witness the actions of community leaders, medical professionals, research scientists, and educators of all types to see how an unprecedented epidemic of death and destruction is being stopped in its tracks. 
 This book describes how a country responded in a time of crisis. In the true-life stories of loss and quiet heroism, activism and scientific initiatives, we learn of new techniques that dramatically reduce rates of transmission from mother to child, new therapies that can save lives of many infected with AIDS, and intricate knowledge about the spread of HIV, as well as issues of confidentiality, distributive justice, and human rights. The experiences of Botswana offer practical lessons along with the critical element of hope.

Saturday Is for Funerals

History

Dow, Unity

Essex, Max

Africa

Harvard University Press

In the year 2000 the World Health Organization estimated that 85 percent of fifteen-year-olds in Botswana would eventually die of AIDS. In Saturday Is for Funerals we learn why that won't happen.
Unity Dow and Max Essex tell the true story of lives ravaged by AIDS―of orphans, bereaved parents, and widows; of families who devote most Saturdays to the burial of relatives and friends. We witness the actions of community leaders, medical professionals, research scientists, and educators of all types to see how an unprecedented epidemic of death and destruction is being stopped in its tracks. 
This book describes how a country responded in a time of crisis. In the true-life stories of loss and quiet heroism, activism and scientific initiatives, we learn of new techniques that dramatically reduce rates of transmission from mother to child, new therapies that can save lives of many infected with AIDS, and intricate knowledge about the spread of HIV, as well as issues of confidentiality, distributive justice, and human rights. The experiences of Botswana offer practical lessons along with the critical element of hope.

A family in modern Botswana is wracked by losses from AIDS and caught in the tension of a society divided between ancient traditions and beliefs and Western thought with white influences. Single parent Mara feels the urgency of holding on to her community’s faith in ancient magic when she worries her family is threatened by a curse. Her 17-year-old daughter Mosa faces different kinds of threats as she seeks to rally her fellow female students to speak out against the sexual abuse they face in school and society at large. The only remaining son in the family, Stan, is torn between how he was raised and the opportunities for his future provided by his white teachers and the education system. A stirring novel about individuals struggling to define themselves as well as their family, this is an unforgettable glimpse into modern African culture and the challenges of balancing history against the hope of progress.

Far and Beyon'

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Spinifex Press

When a twelve-year-old girl goes missing near her village, the local police tell her mother and the villagers that she has been taken by a wild animal. Five years later, a young government employee finds a box containing evidence of human involvement in the affair.

The Screaming of the Innocent

The Botswanan childhood of Monei Ntuka is shaped by stories from her mother, father, and grandmother as well as from the colonizers and the Christian church in this novel about the tensions between modernization and tradition in postcolonial Africa.

Juggling Truths

British & Irish

This legal thriller offers an insider's perspective on the triumphs and failures of the law. After taking up the case of an assaulted teenager, an up-and-coming lawyer must face manipulative opponents and an unreliable judge to fight for what she believes is right. An uncompromising exposé on the ways in which the law can sometimes fail, this novel acts as a homage to the sights and sounds of everyday life in Botswana.

The Heavens May Fall

United States

Far and Beyon’ tells the story of a Botswanan family’s struggle to cope with the devastatation of HIV and poverty. Reeling from the loss of a second son to AIDS, Mara turns to traditional magic to fight the curse she believes is destroying her family. Her children, Mosa and Stan, increasingly reject such beliefs, choosing instead to fight the powerlessness and oppression that have made the family so vulnerable to HIV. In the process, they must challenge adult authorities and scrutinize the ways in which they unwittingly consent to the forces that constrict them.
"The Botswana of village life, of ceremony, of family, noise, rites of passage, love, tragedy, food, violence and kinship are gritty on the page. Dow writes this world the way men and women in her country sing--with a zest fed by connection to the earth and to a shared past ... She has Botswana’s dirt under her nails and is not anxious to scour it out." Morag Fraser, The Age
"This is a novel for everyone ... embrac[ing] life in Botswana and the challenges involved in growing up, confronting adult hypocrisy, poverty, abuse and exploitation." Sheldon G. Weeks, Mail &amp; Guardian 
Unity Dow is Botswana's first female high court judge and a long-time activist for women's rights and the rights of the poor. Explaining her choice to focus this, her first novel, on the AIDS crisis, Dow says, "I really could not have written a contemporary novel on Botswana without devoting a major part of it to AIDS. I can’t imagine a five-minute conversation about anything not somehow veering towards AIDS. If I invite guests to dinner, I can expect at least one to cancel at short notice because of a funeral or illness to attend to."

Literary

Aunt Lute Books

Screaming of the Innocent

Double Storey

Unity Dow: Jugglings Truths [paperback]

Double Storey Books

Women, marriage, and inheritance

Women and Law in Southern Africa Trust

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Books by Dow, Unity

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dow, Unity. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Saturday Is for Funerals

Saturday Is for Funerals

Far and Beyon'

The Screaming of the Innocent

Juggling Truths

The Heavens May Fall

Far and Beyon'

Screaming of the Innocent

Unity Dow: Jugglings Truths [paperback]

Women, marriage, and inheritance