"Drawing on the authors' in-depth experience in the small, landlocked southern African country of Lesotho comes this gem of a book-at once funny and sad, inspiring and sobering-that conveys the social consequences of HIV through a focus on orphans and their care. Beginning with the simple but powerful premise that AIDS is a kinship disease, Infected Kin combines gripping narrative and astute analysis to tell human stories that both capture and enlighten the reader."
Daniel Jordan Smith, author of AIDS Doesn't Show Its Face: Inequality, Morality, and Social Change in Nigeria
"This is a moving account of suffering, yes-but its riveting story includes joy and, above all, inspiration. The authors' narrative of love, labor, and loss in southern Africa weaves the charms of poetic prose (McGrath) with the insights of social science (Block). Together, they offer a lament for global inequality in the 21st century, while also celebrating the human spirit."
Alma Gottlieb and Philip Graham,, co-authors of Parallel Worlds: An Anthropologist and a Writer Encounter Africa and Braided Worlds
"Recommended."
Choice
"This book is engaging and makes it suitable for a wide variety of readers. The inclusion of both anthropological and biomedical approaches to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Lesotho makes this text equally valuable to students and practitioners outside of anthropology. Specifically, the sophisticated treatment of culture as intertwined (and cocreative) with HIV is an important antidote to the reductive treatment of culture as and either the cause of or barrier to eradicating HIV."
Journal of Social Encounters
"With Infected Kin, Block and McGrath have crafted a clear and concise contribution to the anthropological literature on the southern African HIV/AIDS epidemic."
Medical Anthropology Quarterly
