10 Books for World AIDS Day and Beyond

This novel is a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award finalist. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director of an art gallery in Chicago is about to secure an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. As his career flourishes, the AIDS epidemic starts to claim the friends around him. After his friend Nico’s funeral, Tishman finds the only person left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter. Staying with an old friend, a photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, Fiona finds herself grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter.

“This is as close to the truth as I can get,” writes David Feinberg in what he calls his “personal Portrait of the Artist as a Young Diseased Jew Fag Pariah.” In this collection of autobiographical essays, gonzo journalism, and demented Feinbergian lists David Feinberg presents funny, angry, and thoughtful insight into AIDS activism and living, writing, and dying with AIDS.

How to Survive a Plague chronicles the grassroots activists who transformed HIV from a fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by mainstream agencies, these men and women became researchers, lobbyists, and drug smugglers, creating their own publications and pushing for reform in disease-fighting organizations. This definitive history offers an insider’s perspective on a crucial moment in American civil rights, inspired by the acclaimed documentary of the same name.

Edmund White’s autobiographical novel, The Farewell Symphony, captures the impact of the AIDS crisis on the gay community from the 1960s’ sexual liberation to the 1980s’ devastation. Named after Haydn’s symphony, where musicians leave the stage one by one, the book reflects White’s journey of remembrance following the deaths of all his friends, including his lover. Through witty narrative, he explores his struggles as a writer and what it means to be gay, recounting vivid experiences from New York clubs to Paris salons, ultimately revealing the profound power of love, friendship, and loss that shaped a generation.

From age 19 until his death from AIDS at 32 in 1990, artist Keith Haring kept notebooks detailing his thoughts on art, relationships, homosexuality, and his success. By 24, he was a pop icon of the 1980s New York art scene, known for his bold, dynamic figures. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition includes ninety black-and-white images of his artwork alongside never-before-published Polaroids, offering a remarkable glimpse into the life of a man who transformed his artistic journey into enduring cultural significance.

In Close to the Knives, David Wojnarowicz offers a compelling collection of essays that serves as a raw and humorous testimony to America’s “Fear of Diversity.” Charting his journey from a violent suburban childhood to homelessness in New York City, he emerges as one of his generation’s most provocative artists. Wojnarowicz explores themes of street life, drugs, art, family, AIDS, and politics, challenging readers to confront their own lives and societal norms in a powerful, iconoclastic memoir that resonates deeply with issues of acceptance and identity.

In Sacrificio, set in 1998 Havana, Afro-Cuban orphan Rafa finds work in a café and becomes entangled with Renato, the charismatic leader of “Los Injected Ones,” a group plotting to overthrow Castro during Pope John Paul II’s visit. When Renato goes missing, Rafa embarks on a search through Havana’s diverse locales, from an AIDS sanatorium to tourist hotels and a surreal slum created by the group. This visionary novel portrays a nation in decline, capturing the fury, passion, and grim humor of young lives striving for change in a collapsing society.

Days of Grace is an inspiring memoir by Arthur Ashe, the tennis champion and social activist who embodied courage and elegance. This frank and touching account reflects on sports, race, patriotism, sexual ethics, and coping with terminal illness. Despite contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion, Ashe refused to succumb to bitterness, offering profound insights into the individual’s obligations to family and society. His legacy endures as a testament to resilience and grace in the face of adversity, reminding us of the strength of the human spirit.

The Lives of Michel Foucault is the definitive biography of the influential French philosopher who died of an AIDS-related condition in 1984. Known for his groundbreaking studies on modern medicine, prisons, and psychiatry, Foucault’s impact resonates across various fields. While he publicly championed the rights of prisoners and homosexuals, he kept his personal life private. Authored by David Macey with insights from Foucault’s former lover, Daniel Defert, this edition features a new afterword by scholar Stuart Elden, reflecting on Foucault’s legacy in light of recent literature.