‘The story ‘Cancer Ward’ was conceived by Solzhenitsyn in the summer of 1954 in Tashkent, where, after exile, he was treated at an oncology clinic. Memories of this formed the basis of the story. Her heroes are patients of the ‘cancer ward’. Among them are people of all social classes, ages from all over the vast country. Their destinies reflected the state of Soviet society when, struck by the lawlessness of power, as a terrible disease, it received hope for healing.