In 1978, while recovering from cancer, Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor. It has become a classic that Newsweek called "one of the most liberating books of its time". A decade later, Sontag wrote a sequel that countered the almost universal labeling of AIDS as a "plague". Demystifying the fears surrounding these two diseases, Sontag's ground-breaking essays have had an enormous impact on the lives of countless patients and their caregivers.