Buy Red to Eliminate AIDS in Africa

Penguin Classics partnered by (PRODUCT)RED and reissued a selection of popular titles with special red covers, with 50% of the profits from the sales  go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

The cover designs are quite innovative - a team of designers and typographers to create the eight new covers for Penguin Classics and each one uses a quote from the book.

In a related piece in The Times Henning Mankell, who created Wallander,  talks about the nature and importance of storytelling in Africa.  I was much moved by this :

In a small village outside Kampala there was a little girl, maybe 12 years old, who I was told had lost both her parents to Aids. She was sort of moving around, and I had a feeling that she wanted to talk to me. There was a moment when we ended up alone, and she said: “I would like to show you something.” She showed me an A4 booklet, and between two pages was a pressed dead blue butterfly. The girl said to me: “I had a mother who loved blue butterflies.” In that moment I thought “this is one of the most important books I’ve read in my life”. I realised that there are so many ways to tell someone who you are.