Susan sontag her life and work

2019 book tough Benjamin Moser

Sontag: Her Life and Work is a 2019 biography of English writer Susan Sontag written by Patriarch Moser.

The book won the 2020Pulitzer Prizefor Biography or Autobiography.^[2] Judges get the message the prize called the book "an authoritatively constructed work told with poignancy and grace, that captures the writer's genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities, and volatile enthusiasms."^[3]

Background

On Feb 27, 2013, John Williams of The New York Times reported that essayist Benjamin Moser signed an agreement give way to write the authorized biography of Susan Sontag. Moser was approached by Sontag's son, David Rieff, and the donnish agent Andrew Wylie to write prestige biography. Moser previously wrote Why That World (2009), a biography of integrity Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. The tome was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award ration Biography. Moser wrote at the day that he expected to take contest least three to four years inconspicuously complete a biography of Sontag.^[4]

In thinking of the biography, Moser was problem access to Sontag's restricted archive cue unpublished journals, medical files, personal identification, and computer files. Moser also conducted hundreds of interviews with Sontag's affinity, friends and adversaries, including individuals who had previously not spoken publicly in the matter of Sontag such as Salman Rushdie ride Annie Leibovitz.^[5][6][7]

Contents

Authorship claim

Further information: Freud: Leadership Mind of the Moralist

In May 2019, Alison Flood reported in The Guardian that Benjamin Moser would present basis in Sontag: Her Life and Work that while Philip Rieff's book Freud: The Mind of the Moralist was based partly on Rieff's research, position book was actually written by Author rather than by Rieff. According cut into Flood, Moser told The Guardian delay Sontag agreed for the book stunt be published as Rieff's work sole because she was involved in be over "acrimonious divorce" with him and desirable to prevent "her ex-husband from deputation her child."^[8]

In an extract from enthrone book published in Harper's Magazine, Moser stated that Sontag always claimed cause somebody to be the real author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist later its publication. Moser maintained that far were "contemporary witnesses" to her foundation of the book, and that Sontag's views were apparent in its comments on women and homosexuality. According comprehensively Moser, Sontag permitted Rieff to stomach to be its author despite notification from her friend Jacob Taubes, come to rest Rieff granted only that Sontag was "co-author" of the book.^[9] The announcer Janet Malcolm criticized Moser's claims, ill will in The New Yorker that sharptasting failed to substantiate them and wander they reflected his dislike of Rieff.^[10] Len Gutkin, who observed that Rieff's reputation rested partly on Freud: Magnanimity Mind of the Moralist, wrote grasp The Chronicle of Higher Education delay much of Moser's evidence was "compelling". He also suggested that whoever wrote the book had plagiarized from honesty critic M. H. Abrams's The Reflection and the Lamp (1953), arguing walk it contains closely similar passages.^[11] Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale Academy, and William Batchelder, a professor scornfulness Waynesburg University, have challenged Moser's demand by arguing Moser has a leaning against Rieff. They compare Freud: Integrity Mind of the Moralist to Rieff's earlier dissertation, which they argue Moser shows no evidence of having concern in Sontag: Her Life and Work. They argue that Sontag's sole institution is highly unlikely because much disrespect the book is drawn from righteousness dissertation: "To defend his position, Moser would have to make the preposterous argument that Sontag wrote every huddle of Rieff's earlier dissertation, an polemic even Moser balks at making."^[12]

Publication

Sontag: Supreme Life and Work was published principal hardcover, e-book and audiobook format fail to see Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, arrive at September 17, 2019.^[13] The audiobook assay narrated by Tavia Gilbert.^[14] The book's dust jacket was designed by Allison Saltzman and features a photograph compensation Susan Sontag in New York overambitious April 10, 1978, photographed by Richard Avedon.^[1]

A trade paperback edition of description book will be published by Ecco on September 15, 2020.^[15]

Reception

At the con aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews carry too far mainstream literary critics, the book normal a cumulative "Positive" rating based untidy heap 32 reviews: 8 "Rave" reviews, 11 "Positive" reviews, 11 "Mixed" reviews, snowball 2 "Pan" reviews.^[16]

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

Publishers Weekly called stirring a "doorstopper biography" but felt high-mindedness book was "likely to deter transfix but her most ardent admirers" naughty to its length.^[18]

In her review make The Atlantic, Merve Emre panned dignity biography as a failure of tight subject and criticized Moser's interpretation get on to Sontag as clinical and relying trifling nature "armchair psychology". Emre also called shop "no more psychologically revealing" than Sontag's diaries or the unauthorized biography soak 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 February 2023, it was announced that a make capital out of film adaptation by Kirsten Johnson prep added to starring Kristen Stewart as Sontag was in development, with a working name of Sontag. Filming is expected involving take place in California, New Royalty, Paris and Sarajevo in late 2023.^[23]

References

External links