Account of AIDS crisis wins lucrative UK nonfiction prize

LONDON — American author David France has won Britain’s leading nonfiction literary award with a book about the activists who fought the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 90s.

“How to Survive a Plague” was awarded the 30,000-pound ($40,000) Baillie Gifford Prize at a ceremony Thursday in London.

The book recounts how grassroots groups such as ACT UP pushed the government medical establishment to develop treatments for the deadly new disease.

France called it “a witness account of the plague years of the AIDS epidemic … where there was no effective medical treatment for an HIV infection and death was almost certain.”

The book is a follow-up to France’s Academy Award-nominated 2012 documentary of the same name.

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Formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, the award recognizes nonfiction English-language books from any country.

The Associated Press