Three Letter Plague

Jonny Steinberg was born and bred in South Africa. He is the author of critically acclaimed Three Letter Plague, published by Vintage, Little Liberia, Midlands and The Number, which both won South Africa's premier non-fiction literary award and the Sunday Times Alan Paton Prize. Steinberg was educated at Wits University in Johannesburg, and at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has worked as a journalist on a national daily, written scripts for television drama, and has been a consultant to the South African government on criminal justice policy.

"This forceful narrative, with sharp insights and value...has to do with the immense power of stigma, the ways in which we mirror the real or imagined condemnation of others, and of how easily stigma becomes entwined with sexuality" New York Times "Writing with tenderness and authority, Steinberg skilfully manoeuvres past the prejudice that so often muddles analysis of HIV/AIDS to capture the essence of the pandemic and how it threatens not just lives in South Africa but the future of an entire nation" -- Tim Butcher "With his distinctive clarity of vision, Jonny Steinberg mines down into another of contemporary South Africa's fault lines and manages to pull off a remarkable literary feat - how to make AIDS engaging to a largely fatigued world" -- Peter Godwin "A compelling account... jaw-dropping and unforgettable" Independent "Sex and death are hard to talk about, but Jonny Steinberg has a gift for coaxing people to open up. If you want to know why AIDS is devastating southern Africa, you have to read this book. It is a brilliant exploration of the secret, intimate decisions that turn an epidemic into a catastrophe" -- Robert Guest