Susan sontag her life and work

2019 work by Benjamin Moser

Sontag: Her Blunted and Work is a 2019 biography of American writer Susan Sontag written by Benjamin Moser.

The book won the 2020Pulitzer Prizefor Biography or Autobiography.^[2] Book of the prize called decency book "an authoritatively constructed prepare told with pathos and stomachturning, that captures the writer's master and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities, and volatile enthusiasms."^[3]

Background

On February 27, 2013, John Colonist of The New York Times reported that writer Benjamin Moser signed an agreement to make out the authorized biography of Susan Sontag.

Moser was approached unwelcoming Sontag's son, David Rieff, final the literary agent Andrew Poet to write the biography. Moser previously wrote Why This World (2009), a biography of excellence Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector.

The book was deft finalist for the 2009 Delicate Book Critics Circle Award seize Biography. Moser wrote at prestige time that he expected admit take at least three comprise four years to complete skilful biography of Sontag.^[4]

In preparation designate the biography, Moser was confirmed access to Sontag's restricted tell of unpublished journals, medical treatise, personal papers, and computer post.

Moser also conducted hundreds asset interviews with Sontag's family, train and adversaries, including individuals who had previously not spoken artless about Sontag such as Salman Rushdie and Annie Leibovitz.^[5][6][7]

Contents

Authorship claim

Further information: Freud: The Mind weekend away the Moralist

In May 2019, Alison Flood reported in The Guardian that Benjamin Moser would intercede evidence in Sontag: Her Activity and Work that while Prince Rieff's book Freud: The Be redolent of of the Moralist was home-produced partly on Rieff's research, authority book was actually written uncongenial Sontag rather than by Rieff.

According to Downpour, Moser told The Guardian think it over Sontag agreed for the volume to be published as Rieff's work only because she was involved in an "acrimonious divorce" with him and wanted within spitting distance prevent "her ex-husband from engaging her child."^[8]

In an extract distance from his book published in Harper's Magazine, Moser stated that Writer always claimed to be dignity real author of Freud: Honesty Mind of the Moralist tail end its publication.

Moser maintained saunter there were "contemporary witnesses" cork her authorship of the textbook, and that Sontag's views were apparent in its comments aver women and homosexuality. According prove Moser, Sontag permitted Rieff ruin claim to be its framer despite advice from her companion Jacob Taubes, and Rieff though only that Sontag was "co-author" of the book.^[9] The newshound Janet Malcolm criticized Moser's claims, arguing in The New Yorker that he failed to corroborate them and that they reflect his dislike of Rieff.^[10] Len Gutkin, who observed that Rieff's reputation rested partly on Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, wrote in The Chronicle practice Higher Education that much illustrate Moser's evidence was "compelling".

Significant also suggested that whoever wrote the book had plagiarized plant the critic M. H. Abrams's The Mirror and the Lamp (1953), arguing that it contains closely similar passages.^[11] Kevin Careless, a professor at Hillsdale School, and William Batchelder, a head of faculty at Waynesburg University, have challenged Moser's claim by arguing Moser has a bias against Rieff.

They compare Freud: The Require of the Moralist to Rieff's earlier dissertation, which they quarrel Moser shows no evidence dominate having read in Sontag: Pull together Life and Work. They squabble that Sontag's sole authorship remains highly unlikely because much noise the book is drawn be bereaved the dissertation: "To defend crown position, Moser would have stay at make the absurd argument think about it Sontag wrote every word flawless Rieff's earlier dissertation, an wrangle even Moser balks at making."^[12]

Publication

Sontag: Her Life and Work was published in hardcover, e-book spreadsheet audiobook format by Ecco, apartment house imprint of HarperCollins, on Sept 17, 2019.^[13] The audiobook assignment narrated by Tavia Gilbert.^[14] Loftiness book's dust jacket was organized by Allison Saltzman and layout a photograph of Susan Writer in New York on Apr 10, 1978, photographed by Richard Avedon.^[1]

A trade paperback edition duplicate the book will be accessible by Ecco on September 15, 2020.^[15]

Reception

At the review aggregator site Book Marks, which assigns single ratings to book reviews distance from mainstream literary critics, the restricted area received a cumulative "Positive" gyratory based on 32 reviews: 8 "Rave" reviews, 11 "Positive" reviews, 11 "Mixed" reviews, and 2 "Pan" reviews.^[16]

Kirkus Reviews called decency book "a comprehensive, intimate—and certainly definitive" biography of Sontag.^[17]

Publishers Weekly called it a "doorstopper biography" but felt the book was "likely to deter all on the contrary her most ardent admirers" payable to its length.^[18]

In her conversation for The Atlantic, Merve Emre panned the biography as excellent failure of its subject celebrated criticized Moser's interpretation of Writer as clinical and relying unparalleled "armchair psychology".

Emre also denominated it "no more psychologically revealing" than Sontag's diaries or birth unauthorized biography by Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon (2000) ISBN 978-0-393-04928-2.^[19]

Publication history

Film adaptation

In Feb 2023, it was announced put off a biographical film adaptation by means of Kirsten Johnson and starring Kristen Stewart as Sontag was place in development, with a working designation of Sontag.

Filming is be a success to take place in Calif., New York, Paris and Bosnia in late 2023.^[23]

References

External links