Book description
In l978 Sontag wrote
Illness As Metaphor
. A cancer patient herself at the time, she shows how the metaphors and
myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to
the suffering of the patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper
treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag
shows cancer for what it is - just a disease. Cancer is 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, stigmatised disease replete with mystifications and
punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote Aids and its Metaphors
, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic.
Susan Sontag is one of America's best-known and most admired writers.
She is the author of several work of fiction and her non-fiction
includes ON PHOTOGRAPHY (Penguin), winner of the National Book Critics'
Circle Award. She has also written and directed four feature films and
stages plays in the US and Europe.
