Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntæɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer and filmmaker, teacher and political activist, publishing her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover and In America.Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Her essays and speeches sometimes drew criticism. The New York Review of Books called her "one of the most influential critics of her generation."
Radcliffe College, University of Chicago, University of Paris, University of Toronto Mississauga, Harvard University, North Hollywood High School, University of California, Berkeley
Nationality
American
Spouse
Philip Rieff
Children
David Rieff
Parents
Mildred Jacobson, Jack Rosenblatt
Siblings
Judith Rosenblatt
Partner
Annie Leibovitz
Awards
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society, Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, National Book Award for Fiction, MacArthur Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Ca...
Nominations
National Book Award for Arts and Letters (Nonfiction), Lambda Literary Award for AIDS
Movies
Promised Lands, Duet for Cannibals, Brother Carl
Star Sign
Capricorn
#
Quote
1
On art: Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
2
I'll take the American empire any day over the empire of what my pal Chris Hitchens calls "Islamic fascism." I'm not against fighting this enemy - it is an enemy and I'm not a pacifist.
3
I think what happened on September Eleventh was an appalling crime, and I'm astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I feel that way. But I do feel that the Gulf War revisited is not the way to fight this enemy.
4
The white race is the cancer of human history.
5
One of the tasks art has assumed is making forays into and taking up positions on the frontiers of consciousness (often very dangerous to the artist as a person) and reporting back what's there
6
The youngest of the arts is also the most heavily burdened with memory. Cinema is a time machine. Movies preserve the past, resurrect the beautifil dead; present, intact, vanished or ruined environments; enbody without ironu styles and fashions that seem funny today; solemnly ponder irrelevant or naive problems. The historical particularity of the reality registered on celluloid is so vivid that practically all films older than four or five years are saturated with pathos
7
I think it was rock&roll the reason I got divorced. I think it was Bill Haley and the Comets and Chuck Berry that made me decide to get a divorce and leave the academic world
8
Perhaps no work of art *is* art. It can only *become* art, when it is part of the past
9
Cinema is the most alive, the most exciting, the most important of all art forms
#
Fact
1
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 520-522. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
2
Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1967.
3
She was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978).
4
She was awarded the 2001 Jerusalem Prize.
5
She was awarded the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
6
She served as President from 1987 to 1989 of the American Center of PEN.
7
She became an honorary citizen of Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia.
8
She is interred at "Cimiterie Montparnasse" in Paris, France located in [Plot: Division 2, Section 2, 1 East, 28 North, concession number 3PA2005].
9
She was a MacArthur Fellow from 1990 to 1995.
10
She was awarded the "Officer de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" in 1984 and awarded a "Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the French government in 1999.
11
In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy.
12
She was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for the book "On Photography" published in (1978).
13
Longtime companion of photographer Annie Leibovitz (from the mid 1980s until Sontag's death).
14
Received the "Prince of Asturias" Award for Letters in 2003.
$1.9 Million
