 While at work on The Songlines between 1983 and 1986 , Chatwin frequently came down with colds . He also developed skin lesions that may have been symptoms of Kaposi 's sarcoma . After finishing The Songlines in August 1986 , Chatwin went to Switzerland , where he collapsed on the street . At a clinic there , he was diagnosed as HIV @-@ positive . Chatwin provided different reasons to his doctors as to how he might have contracted HIV , including from a gang rape in Dahomey or possibly from Sam Wagstaff , the patron and lover of Robert Mapplethorpe . 
