"World AIDS Day takes place on the 1st December each year. It’s an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Founded in 1988, World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day." According to the UN, currently there are over 36 million people living with HIV worldwide.
If you'd like to learn more, here are some nonfiction histories of the AIDS epidemic, as well as some fictional stories featuring characters with HIV or AIDS.
AIDS/HIV Nonfiction
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How to survive a plague : the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS
by David France A definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, written by the creator of and inspired by the seminal documentary of the same name, also shares the poignant stories of gay activists who resolved to make their life battles purposeful. By the author of Our Fathers. |
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And the band played on : politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic
by Randy Shilts An examination of the AIDS crisis critiques the federal government for its inaction, health authorities for their greed, and scientists for their desire for prestige in the face of the AIDS pandemic, in a twentieth anniversary edition of the acclaimed exposé. Reissue. 25,000 first printing. |
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HIV/AIDS : a very short introduction
by Alan Whiteside
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Cured : how the Berlin patients defeated HIV and forever changed medical science
by Nathalia Holt An award-winning research scientist and HIV fellow at the Ragon Institute reveals the science behind the discovery of a potential cure for HIV, tracing the groundbreaking contributions of the two Berlin Patients and how their cases have influenced HIV researchers throughout the world. |
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When we rise : my life in the movement
by Cleve Jones The partial inspiration for a forthcoming ABC television miniseries from Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones' memoir is a sweeping, profoundly moving account of his life from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis and up to his present-day involvement with the marriage equality battle. TV tie-in. |
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Virus hunt : the search for the origin of HIV
by Dorothy H Crawford AIDS was first described in 1981 and just under three years later the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was discovered. Confirming that HIV causes AIDS--now accepted by virtually all scientists--took rather longer. But where did HIV come from? When did it first infect us? How did it manage to spread so widely? |
AIDS/HIV Fiction
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Two boys kissing
by David Levithan A chorus of men who have died of AIDS observes and yearns to help a cross-section of today's gay teens who navigate new love, long-term relationships, coming out, self-acceptance and more in a society that has changed in many ways. By the author of Boy Meets Boy. |
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Don't Call Us Dead : Poems
by Danez Smith An awarding-poet presents a collection of works that opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police—a place where suspicion, violence and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love and longevity they deserved here on earth. |
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The blackwater lightship : a novel
by Colm Tóibín With AIDS about to claim a well-loved young man, three generations of his family are reunited at his bedside in Ireland, in a poignant and evocative novel that explores the nature of love and the complex interrelationships among family members. By the author of The Story of the Night. |
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Push : a novel
by Sapphire A courageous and determined young teacher opens up a new world of hope and redemption for sixteen-year-old Precious Jones, an abused young African-American girl living in Harlem, who was raped and left pregnant by her father. |
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Tell the wolves I'm home : a novel
by Carol Rifka Brunt Her world upended by the death of a beloved artist uncle who was the only person who understood her, 14-year-old June is mailed a teapot by her uncle's grieving friend, with whom June forges a poignant relationship.. |
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Angels in America : Millennium Approaches
by Tony Kushner Dramatizes the effects of AIDS on the United States through the experiences of lawyer Roy Cohn, a Mormon couple, and a young man called Prior Walter. |
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Angels in America : Perestroika
by Tony Kushner The second half of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Angels in America, follows the characters introduced in Millennium Approaches into the 1990s as they continue to struggle with the ravages of AIDS. |