The 21 stellar writers in this international short-story collection include five Nobel winners. All the stories were chosen by the writers themselves and contributed without any fee, and all profits go to fight HIV-AIDS in southern Africa. The stories are not about AIDS, but several are about war and about dying. In Njabulo Ndbele's "Death of a Son," parents fight to get their child's body from the apartheid police. "The Ultimate Safari," by Gordimer, who edited the anthology, is a searing, unforgettable account of a desperate refugee child hiding from the fancy tourists in a famous game park. In contrast, Woody Allen has contributed his hilarious New Yorker piece lampooning the financier whose kid was turned down by a prestigious Manhattan preschool. There are also fine stories by Margaret Atwood, Hanef Kureishi, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, and more. A good display title for World AIDS Day, December 1, 2004. Hazel Rochman

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Nadine Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. The author of thirteen novels, most recently Loot (FSG, 2003), and nine volumes of stories, she lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.