Elton John is to publish a new book detailing his work overcoming the plague and the stigma of AIDS through his personal efforts and the creation of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised and donated nearly a quarter-billion dollars to fighting AIDS worldwide.
LOVE IS THE CURE will be the very personal story of Sir Elton’s life during the AIDS epidemic, including his agony at seeing friend after friend perish needlessly. Through his stories of close encounters with people like Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, and many others, he will convey the personal toll AIDS has taken on his life—and his infinite determination to stop its spread.
Sir Elton writes, “This is a disease that must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers and to build bridges of compassion. Why are we not doing more? This is a question I have thought deeply about, and wish to answer—and to help change—by writing this book.”
30 years after the discovery of AIDS the statistics and stories of the lives destroyed and lost to HIV/AIDS are staggering. It has claimed 60 million lives, and there are 34 million HIV-positive people in the world today. For every two people who start treatment, another five contract HIV. Even in the United States, thousands of low-income, HIV-positive Americans are on waiting lists to receive treatment they cannot afford and many have died while waiting. Elton John founded the EJAF in 1992, and for the past 20 years the foundation has provided information, education, advocacy, condoms, medical care, and emotional support to millions of people, and most especially the people who governments and corporations of the world often ignore—the sex workers, prisoners, young gay men, gay and straight African Americans and many more.
The book will be published in July 2012 by Hodder & Stoughton with American sister company Little, Brown and Company to coincide with the 2012 XIX International AIDS Conference to be held in Washington, DC. The audio book will be read by Elton John and published simultaneously by Hodder Audio.
Source: Hodder.co.uk
