Openly Positive Short Story Collection

Telling stories of positive lives

The Openly Positive Trust (Openly Positive) is developing a short story collection, the third book in our non-profit series, due for publication in March 2011.

The story-telling series aims to promote the visibility of people living with and affected by HIV, and to celebrate the positive lives of a diversity of people. Our books promote a less stigmatised environment for HIV disclosure, acceptance and living positively.

New, diverse authors and translations

To date, we have selected 16 stories from new writers from South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All 16 stories will be published in the short story collection in English, while we will translate three of the stories into the mother tongue of the author and publish them in those languages in separate booklets to reach a wider readership in different languages. Extracts from the stories will appear on this website.

Diverse issues

The short stories reflect a central thread of living positively with HIV, or being significantly affected by HIV, for example through losing a partner or family member. Parallel to the HIV theme, authors share how their lives have been affected by a wide range of other challenges, such as violence against women, being lesbian or gay, being orphaned, being a refugee, and faith issues.


Have a question or need some answers?
Contact us on opositive@iafrica.com for more information.