Rarely have world writers of such variety and distinction appeared together in the same anthology. Their stories capture the range of emotions and situations of our human universe: tragedy, comedy, fantasy, satire, dramas of sexual love and of war in different continents and cultures. They are not about HIV / AIDS. But all twenty-one writers have given their stories--chosen by themselves as representing some of the best of their lifetime work as storytellers--without any fee or royalty.

Telling Tales is being published in more than twelve countries. The publisher's profits from the sales of this book will go to HIV / AIDS preventive education and for medical treatment for people living with the suffering this pandemic infection brings to our contemporary world. So when you buy this unique anthology of renowned storytellers as a gift or for your own reading pleasure, you are also making a gift to combat the plague of our new millennium.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Bulldog by Arthur Miller

The Centaur by José Saramago

Down the Quiet Street by Es'kia Mphahlele

The Firebird's Nest by Salman Rushdie

Cell Phone by Ingo Schulze

Death Constant Beyond Love by Gabriel García Márquez

The Age of Lead by Margaret Atwood

Witnesses of an Era by Günter Grass

The Journey to the Dead by John Updike

Sugar Baby by Chinua Achebe

The Way of the Wind by Amos Oz

Warm Dogs by Paul Theroux

The Ass and The Ox by Michel Tournier

Death of a Son by Njabulo S. Ndebele

The Letter Scene by Susan Sontag

To Have Been by Claudio Magris

A Meeting, At Last by Hanif Kureishi

Associations in Blue by Christa Wolf
The Rejection by Woody Allen

The Ultimate Safari by Nadine Gordimer

Abandoned Children of This Planet by Kenzaburo Oe

The Contributors

Source Notes