The Publication has “a striking and frightening immediacy during the time of Covid-19”

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic our Society’s publication In a time of plague: Memories of the “Spanish” flu epidemic of 1918 in South Africa has become very topical. A substantial number of reviews of the publication, edited by Prof Howard Phillips, have recently appeared in journals and newspapers as well as on-line. The latest review by Elsabe Brits in Litnet on 24 April 2020 can be read HERE.

Ms Brits concludes her review as follows:

“Testimonies by survivors, recorded irrespective of race, class, age, gender and geographical locations, add breadth and depth to the overall grim picture of the 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic. Despite recollections having been recorded some 60 years after the event, the voices of the interviewees echo eerily across time as they attest to the trauma and horror of a time when they performed tasks seldom required of young people in peacetime. These memories of the survivors of the 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic have a striking and frightening immediacy during the time of Covid-19.”