Slim

A personal account of AIDS in East Africa by one of the first journalists to encounter the situation there at first hand. Ed Hooper's love-hate relationship with Uganda and its people began in 1981 and in 1986 led him to work there as a journalist, initially covering its political situation. But news began to spread of a mysterious epidemic sweeping through the villages of Uganda, known as Slim, and in the West as AIDS. Hooper began to travel round these villages, in Uganda and later Kenya, becoming one of the first journalists to investigate the African AIDS problem, talking to doctors and government officials, victims and their families, and encountering entire communities infected and dying. While the government initiated intensive education programmes and sought international assistance, the evidence Hooper was gathering, in the villages and along the trucking routes which carried the disease from town to town, told a horrific story - one of a virus escalating out of control, exacerbated by panic, ignorance, poverty and government inefficiency. Despite the government's supposedly enlightened attitude, Hooper's investigations led to his expulsion from Uganda and Kenya.
SLIM is more than an investigation into AIDS, however - it is a personal story informed by Hooper's own adventures and misadventures. He was by his own admission promiscuous in his early years in East Africa. His tempestuous affair with one Ugandan woman, whom he came to love and later to marry, brought a realization of the recklessness of his own behaviour. It is this personal story which lifts SLIM above the level of documentary and makes it the most unusual book on AIDS yet written.