Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - December 6, 2004

The 81-year old Gordimer contacted 20 colleagues around the world and no one refused to contribute a short story to the anthology, "Telling Tales," a first, to raise funds for AIDS sufferers in her native South Africa.

"I got from every one of them absolutely marvelous responses," she told a news conference. If musicians could stage "huge gigs to raise awareness" writers collectively could do something too.

"What have we writers done as a group?" Gordimer asked. "The answer was nothing."

Flanked by fellow writers John Updike and Salman Rushdie, Gordimer led a signing ceremony at the United Nations to launch the tales from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Susan Sontag, Guenter Grass, Margaret Atwood, Woody Allen and Arthur Miller.

Other writers are Chinua Achebe, Hanif Kureishi, Claudio Magris, Es'kia Mphahlele, Njabulo Ndebele, Kenzaburo Oe, Amos Oz, Jose Saramago, Ingo Schulze, Paul Theroux, Michel Tournier and Christa Wolf as well as Gordimer, Updike and Rushdie.

"This is about the black plague," Updike said. "The sad truth of being a northeastern American is that you have to remind yourself that these are plague times."

"Telling Tales" will be published simultaneously in the United States (Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and a dozen other nations to mark World AIDS Day on Wednesday.

Royalties will go to the Treatment Action Campaign, a private group, for its medical and advocacy programs on HIV/AIDS in South Africa and neighboring countries, where one in four people is affected by the pandemic.

Gordimer, who serves as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Program, said particularly shocking statistics were the number of AIDS orphans in South Africa -- one in every five children by next year and a total of 18 million by 2010.

At a reception that included readings by the authors, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Gordimer had achieved enough for several lifetimes.

"And yet, at a point in her career when some writers might contemplate a breeze memoir, she has taken up a new case: the fight against the global AIDS epidemic," he said.

Rushdie warned against anyone using ideology to characterize AIDS as a gay disease or a Western plot and said South Africa had acted too slowly to combat the pandemic.

In many Islamic countries, he said people believe "if you are a good Muslim you don't get AIDS," adding: "These are very persuasive and dangerous misconceptions."

In India, Rushdie said one of the "big untold stories" is the growing rate of infections in brothels and "nothing has been done to advise those people."

His story in the collection, "The Firebird's Nest" is about bride burning in his native India.

Gordimer's story, called "The Ultimate Safari" contrasts tourism in South Africa's Kruger Park during apartheid with hungry Mozambican refugees risking dangers from wild animals to escape war at home.

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