AIDS

The country has the largest HIV epidemic in the world, and it's also had one of the most conflicted responses to the virus. For years, the government questioned the link between HIV and AIDS and offered little by way of treatment. Now, South Africa is trying to make up for lost time.

A new book about global attitudes to the AIDS epidemic in Africa says lays some of the blame at writer Joseph Conrad's door. Conrad's Heart of Darkness, says author Uzodinma Iweala, connected inferiority and disease with Africans in way which is still evident today. Host Scott Simon talks the author about Our Kind of People.