By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is – a disease; not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment, and highly curable, if good treatment is found early enough.
Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote Aids and Its Metaphors, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic. Available in store and online.
