Eighty-four-year-old aids activist playwright and author, Larry Kramer, has died at 84 from pneumonia, his close friend and literary executor, William Schwalbe, told CNN.
In paying tribute to his longtime friend Schwabe said, "Larry made a huge contribution to our world as an activist but also as a writer.I believe that his plays and novels, from 'The Normal Heart' to 'The American People' will more than stand the test of time."
Kramer will always be remembered for using his ability to write to draw attention to the aids pandemic. He witnessed first hand the spread of the disease among his friends in 1980 and this compelled him to express his anger and frustration at the unwillingness of both the gay community and the government at the time to recognise the fact there was a health crisis developing that needed immediate attention.
This compelled him to sit down and write the essay 1,112 and Counting – it was this piece of anger fuelled writing that made the USA sit up and acknowledge that fact that there was a disease called AIDS that was spreading rapidly and that needed an immediate national health response.
He went on to write the play The Normal Heart which mobilised the gay community into action and was also a catalyst for changing public policy around aids in the USA.
Kramer is to be commended for his work as an activist especially when one remembers that in the ’80s there were no social media tools available - in today’s world with one tweet, one Instagram post, an activist can reach a global audience in an instant.
Kramer founded The Gay Men’s Health Crisis, it is the world’s largest private organisation assisting people living with AIDS.
Many credit him with having saved thousands of lives - may you RIP Larry Kramer.
(It is worth noting that when the aids crisis hit South Africa, killing up to a 1 000 people a day, the response was much the same – denial. This excellent article in the Guardian is a grim reminder of how we as a nation handled the HIV pandemic back then - our response to the coronavirus pandemic has been vastly different.)
