Jonny Steinberg's THREE-LETTER PLAGUE (published in the US as SIZWE'S TEST) is described by Chris Cleave as 'a powerful, poignant and personal story that gets under the skin of a terrifying epidemic'.

The US edition published by Simon & Schuster has been chosen as a Book of the Year 2008 in the Washington Post and the South African edition published by Jonathan Ball has been picked by SA Sunday Times literary editor Tymon Smith as one of his Top Ten Books of the Year.

Here an extract has appeared in the Guardian Weekend Magazine.

Jonny Steinberg will be in the UK to talk about the book, appearing at the South Bank on 15 January and at Cambridge University on 27 January.

'A sensitive, moving and deeply intelligent exploration of ways in which individuals and institutions have responded to the catastrophe of AIDS in South Africa.' -- JM Coetzee

'With his distinctive clarity of vision, Jonny Steinberg mines down to another of contemporary South Africa's fault lines and manages to pull off a remarkable literary feat - to make AIDS engaging to a largely fatigued world.' -- Peter Godwin

'Writing with tenderness and authority, Steinberg skillfully manoeuvres past the prejudice that so often muddles analysis of HIV/AIDS to capture the essence of the pandemic and how it threatens not just lives in South Africa but the future of an entire nation.' -- Tim Butcher

'Sex and death are hard to talk about, but Jonny Steinberg has a gift for coaxing people to open up. If you want to know why AIDS is devastating southern Africa, you have to read this book. It is a brilliant exploration of the secret, intimate decisions that turn an epidemic into a catastrophe.' -- Robert Guest