Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa

Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa is a non-fiction book written by Stephen Lewis for the Massey Lectures. Lewis wrote it in early to mid-2005 and House of Anansi Press released it as the lecture series began in October 2005. The book spent seven weeks at #1 on The Globe and Mail’s Nonfiction Bestseller List.

About Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa in brief

Summary Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa is a non-fiction book written by Stephen Lewis for the Massey Lectures. Lewis wrote it in early to mid-2005 and House of Anansi Press released it as the lecture series began in October 2005. Each of the book’s chapters was delivered as one lecture in a different Canadian city, beginning in Vancouver on October 18 and ending in Toronto on October 28. The speeches were aired on CBC Radio One between November 7 and 11. The book spent seven weeks at #1 on The Globe and Mail’s Nonfiction Bestseller List. A second edition was released in June 2006. At the time of publication, the author, Stephen Lewis, aged 67 and living in Toronto, worked as the United Nations Special Envoy for HIVAIDS in Africa, a position he held since 2001. He wrote the book, not as an employee of the UN, but as a citizen concerned with the world’s response to the AIDS challenge in Africa. In the book and the lectures, Lewis argues that significant changes are required to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa by their 2015 deadline. He also addresses such issues as discrimination against women and primary education for children.

To help alleviate problems, he ends with potential solutions which mainly require increased funding by G8 countries to levels beyond what they promise. He was the subject of two award-winning documentaries by The Nature of Things, entitled Race Against Time and The Value of Life. Meanwhile he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, awarded the Pearson Medal of Peace, and named Canadian of the Year by MacLean’s magazine. He founded the Stephen Lewis Foundation, hosted Oprah Winfrey as she toured Africa, and was thesubject of a documentary entitled Race against Time: The Story of a Life in Africa and The Story Of A Life In Africa. He is also the former Canadian ambassador to the UN, and as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. His style focuses less on numbers and statistics, and more on connecting decisions by UN officials and western diplomats to consequences on the ground. His eyewitness accounts are said to be candid and emotional. He tells the story of how he became increasingly distraught by the devastation he witnessed.