Never Give Up / Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS [Paperback]

Kevin Winge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2006

Never Give Up puts the AIDS pandemic into cultural context, raising questions about international health issues, cross-cultural experiences, racism, and homophobia. In his role as executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota, a nonprofit organization that provides meals and related services to people with HIV/AIDS, Kevin Winge shares his firsthand knowledge of the realities and challenges facing people living with the disease. While earning his master’s degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Winge traveled to the townships outside of Cape Town, South Africa, where he lived and worked with AIDS workers for six months. He chronicled his daily activities by telling stories about the people he came in contact with, accounts that are included here. Emotional and highly personal, the lives and conditions depicted in Never Give Up are a strong call to action for all of us to respond to this devastating disease with compassion and determination.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Winge, who runs a Minnesota nonprofit serving people with HIV/AIDS, went to Africa for six months to do fieldwork for a graduate program and witnessed the intersection of international health issues and racism in the small township of Guguletu, South Africa. Through conversations with AIDS sufferers in Guguletu and recollections of friends who died of AIDS in New York in the 1980s, Winge puts a human scale to the statistics regarding HIV infection and AIDS mortality. Once he got past the image of the ugly American with tourist intentions and do-gooder impulses, Winge slowly won the trust of the people of the townships and learned how they lived with the pandemic of AIDS. Winge asked residents about their wishes and heard of simple things: young people wanting to live to their 20s or 30s, older people wanting schooling for their children. This is a very personal appeal for greater awareness and outrage at the extent to which AIDS is scourging poor nations of the world, particularly in Africa, in hopes of provoking action. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Based in Minneapolis, Winge travels and speaks extensively on the subject of HIV/AIDS and the national and international disparities in access to health care. He makes frequent trips to South Africa where he continues work to educate and bring hope to people living with HIV/AIDS.

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Syren Book Company; 1 edition (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929636651
• ISBN-13: 978-0929636658
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,303,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hope in an Unlikely Place, July 26, 2006

By 

Barbara L. Hoese (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Give Up / Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS (Paperback)

Kevin Winge's book is filled with gripping stories of the hope and suffering that AIDS has wreaked in Sub Saharan Africa. It gives the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa a human face with stories of a cook, a gas station owner and an AIDS education worker, to name a few. His stories could reflect those of families anywhere in the world. The book is a call to action for each of us to step up to the responsibility we have as part of the global community.

Never Give Up is written in a direct, compact style that draws readers into the lives of the people of Guguletu, South Africa. Winge wastes no words in creating pictures of the lives of these people. I found myself laughing, crying, getting angry and feeling hope as I read the book. Sometimes I would swing from one emotion to the next simply by turning a single page. The book draws you in from the opening of how Winge first got to South Africa, to his closing story of his continuing work there, never giving up.

You won't regret a minute of your time reading this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Never Give UP/Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS, June 10, 2007

By 

Klavs Skovsholm (Brussels, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Give Up / Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS (Paperback)

When a Capetownian friend recommended this book, I never expected that I would end up reading it in the course of a Sunday. I have been to Africa, including South Africa many, many times both professionally and as a tourist. Therefore I felt felt his description of the lives of black HIV/AIDS victims was spot on, judging from what I have been able to observe over the years. Mr Winge has a wonderfully uncomplicated, honest almost poetic style of writing which fits this sensitive subject extremely well. I do not say to tourists that they should necessarily go and study the poverty in a SA township, but I would recommend them to read this book to be aware of the problems faced by many poor black South Africans. I understand this book does not sell well in SA - apparently because Mr Winge only deals with black people in his book and because whites are beginning to be weary about reading about the poor blacks. What can you say? The book takes place in a black township (where many whites never venture)!
Klavs Skovsholm, Brussels, Belgium

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational and heartbreaking, October 24, 2008

By 

Todd Knealing - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Give Up / Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS (Paperback)

Kevin Winge presents an illustrative view of what is occurring at the ground level in the battle against HIV in South Africa. The emotion and courage of those presented in his vignettes provide inspiration to others to try and make a difference. Some vignettes will break a person's heart, but this evoked compassion is necessary to help push people to want to work for change.