La malaltia com a metàfora ; La sida i les seves metàfores

Although diseases are a natural part of life, since time immemorial they have given rise to all kinds of figurative representations. We could say that the metaphorical use that has been made of it has distorted the reality of the disease and aggravated the suffering of the affected people, and has even been an obstacle to remedying it. Susan Sontag wrote the first essay in this volume based on her own experience as a cancer patient, with the desire to free us from the prejudices of sinister metaphors, pernicious fantasies and euphemisms that surround this disease, and so many others. In the late 1980s, with the spread of AIDS, Sontag "re-read" the analysis she had made following cancer and tuberculosis, and wrote the second essay, in which she extends her arguments to a disease that fight with very specific groups. These two now classic essays remain a lesson in treating illness without the constraint of stigmas.