It is actually not a fiction but a slightly faked documentary. The ambition of the author was to present what he knew about Gualg, filling the void with imagination so that the whole book looks like a well-researched documentary.

I read many of his works. Cancer Ward looks like traditional fiction, but we know that it is directly inspired by his personal experience.

That's one of the distinctive traits of this author. He went through pretty much everything he wrote about.