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Discussion: Henning Mankell, Ulla Schmidt, Peter Piot (UNAIDS)
Moderation: Patricia Schäfer
Reading: Elke Heidenreichin German and English language
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| In spring 2003, Henning Mankell spent several weeks in Uganda to meet Aids sufferers and their families and discuss their situation. His encounter with Aida, a sixteen-year-old girl, is at the heart of his story "The Mango Plant" (published in "I die, but the memory lives on"). Aida’s mother has Aids. Her income as a teacher can cover the costs of feeding the sixteen members of her family, but it cannot pay for the medicines needed. In telling the story of Aida, Mankell simultaneously narrates the fate of all children whose parents die prematurely, leaving them the legacy of caring for their brothers and sisters. One of Mankell’s main inspirations in writing this story came from a development aid project to help parents with Aids create Memory Books for their children as a record of the key events in their lives. In Mankell’s view, these Memory Books, which could soon fill a library, "may well be the most significant documents of our age", and encouraged him to explore his own memories. Mankell does not only report on his experiences in Uganda but also gives a very personal account of how he first met Aids sufferers, his own fears of contact with them, and his thoughts on death. Organised by the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security, the House of World Cultures, and the Paul Zsolnay Press, in cooperation with the international literature festival berlin. Henning Mankell, author, dramatist and stage director, was born in 1948 in Härjedalen, Sweden. He now spends half the year living in Sweden and half in Maputo/Mozambique. In addition to the popular stories about portly detective Kurt Wallander, Zsolnay has also published Mankell’s detective novel "Die Rückkehr des Tanzlehrers" (The Return of the Dancing Master), "Tea-Bag" and his African novels "Der Chronist der Winde" (Chronicle of the Wind), "Die rote Antilope" (The Red Antelope), and "Das Auge des Leoparden" (The Eye of the Leopard).
Organized by: Bundes-Gesundheitsministerium, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Paul Zsolnay Verlag
In cooperation with international literaturfestival berlin.
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