ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss some of the interactions, contradictions and conflicts within and between European and African AIDS discourses, especially in relation to differing narratives of gender and sexuality. Against this background, I situate a reading of two pieces of European fiction in order to analyse how they figure and disfigure, appropriate and interpellate (or give a stabilising identity to) ‘Africa’ within their own representations of AIDS. These readings of fiction suggest that ‘literature’ can, and indeed must, contribute to what is understood as ‘AIDS’. Moreover, reading fiction can provide for a reflective and critical space wherein reading (as a critical and cultural practise) is mobilised to provide a space for interrogation and speculation. Reading fictions about and of AIDS then allows for a critical re-reading of some of the seemingly dominant and stereotyped issues inherent in AIDS discourse.
