Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag in 1994, by Juan Fernando Bastos (commissioned by the The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide for the 2009 May–June cover)
Born	Susan Rosenblatt (1933-01-16)January 16, 1933 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	December 28, 2004(2004-12-28) (aged 71) New York City, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Myelodysplastic syndrome
Resting place	Montparnasse Cemetery Paris, France
Nationality	American
Other names	The Dark Lady of American Letters
Occupation	Novelist, essayist
Years active	1959–2004
Known for	Fiction, essays, nonfiction
Spouse(s)	Philip Rieff (m. 1950–59; divorced)
Partner(s)	Annie Leibovitz (1989–2004; her death)
Website	susansontag.com

Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntæɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, filmmaker, teacher, and political activist. She published 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. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation."

Sontag was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York City, the daughter of Mildred (née Jacobson) and Jack Rosenblatt, both Jews of Lithuanian and Polish descent. Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in 1939, when Susan was five years old. Seven years later, her mother married U.S. Army Captain Nathan Sontag. Susan and her sister, Judith, took their stepfather's surname, although he did not adopt them formally. Sontag did not have a religious upbringing and claimed not to have entered a synagogue until her mid-20s. Remembering an unhappy childhood, with a cold, distant mother who was "always away," Sontag lived on Long Island, New York, then in Tucson, Arizona, and later in the San Fernando Valley in southern California, where she took refuge in books and graduated from North Hollywood High School at the age of 15. She began her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley but transferred to the University of Chicago in admiration of its famed core curriculum. At Chicago, she undertook studies in philosophy, ancient history and literature alongside her other requirements. Leo Strauss, Joseph Schwab, Christian Mackauer, Richard McKeon, Peter von Blanckenhagen and Kenneth Burke were among her lecturers. She graduated at the age of 18 with an A.B. and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Chicago, she became best friends with fellow student Mike Nichols.