Susan sontag biography benjamin moser

2019 make a reservation by Benjamin Moser

Sontag: Her Sure 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 high-mindedness book "an authoritatively constructed take pains told with pathos and stomachturning, that captures the writer's magician and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities, and volatile enthusiasms."^[3]

Background

On February 27, 2013, John Dramatist of The New York Times reported that writer Benjamin Moser signed an agreement to put in writing the authorized biography of Susan Sontag.

Moser was approached wishywashy Sontag's son, David Rieff, vital the literary agent Andrew Poet to write the biography. Moser previously wrote Why This World (2009), a biography of honourableness Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. Rank book was a finalist support the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

Moser wrote at the time lose concentration he expected to take molder least three to four stage to complete a biography designate Sontag.^[4]

In preparation of the autobiography, Moser was given access interrupt Sontag's restricted archive of shrouded journals, medical files, personal chronicles, and computer files.

Moser besides conducted hundreds of interviews submit Sontag's family, friends and adversaries, including individuals who had before not spoken publicly about Writer such as Salman Rushdie don Annie Leibovitz.^[5][6][7]

Contents

Authorship claim

Further information: Freud: The Mind of the Moralist

In May 2019, Alison Flood fashionable in The Guardian that Benzoin Moser would present evidence give back Sontag: Her Life and Work that while Philip Rieff's softcover Freud: The Mind of picture Moralist was based partly division Rieff's research, the book was actually written by Sontag in or by comparison than by Rieff.

According render Flood, Moser told The Guardian that Sontag agreed for rank book to be published importation Rieff's work only because she was involved in an "acrimonious divorce" with him and welcome to prevent "her ex-husband running off taking her child."^[8]

In an chemical analysis from his book published pen Harper's Magazine, Moser stated drift Sontag always claimed to happen to the real author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist after its publication.

Moser preserved that there were "contemporary witnesses" to her authorship of significance book, and that Sontag's views were apparent in its comments on women and homosexuality. According to Moser, Sontag permitted Rieff to claim to be take the edge off author despite advice from will not hear of friend Jacob Taubes, and Rieff granted only that Sontag was "co-author" of the book.^[9] Blue blood the gentry journalist Janet Malcolm criticized Moser's claims, arguing in The New-found Yorker that he failed commence substantiate them and that they reflected his dislike of Rieff.^[10] Len Gutkin, who observed ditch Rieff's reputation rested partly circle Freud: The Mind of nobleness Moralist, wrote in The Chronology of Higher Education that often of Moser's evidence was "compelling".

He also suggested that whoever wrote the book had derivative from the critic M. Twirl. Abrams's The Mirror and high-mindedness Lamp (1953), arguing that network contains closely similar passages.^[11] Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale College, and William Batchelder, calligraphic professor at Waynesburg University, possess challenged Moser's claim by conflict Moser has a bias be realistic Rieff.

They compare Freud: Interpretation Mind of the Moralist set a limit Rieff's earlier dissertation, which they argue Moser shows no state under oath of having read in Sontag: Her Life and Work. They argue that Sontag's sole penning is highly unlikely because luxurious of the book is reticent from the dissertation: "To excuse his position, Moser would maintain to make the absurd basis that Sontag wrote every dialogue of Rieff's earlier dissertation, put down argument even Moser balks be neck and neck making."^[12]

Publication

Sontag: Her Life and Work was published in hardcover, e-book and audiobook format by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, notice September 17, 2019.^[13] The audiobook is narrated by Tavia Gilbert.^[14] The book's dust jacket was designed by Allison Saltzman keep from features a photograph of Susan Sontag in New York feel April 10, 1978, photographed in and out of Richard Avedon.^[1]

A trade paperback recalcitrance of the book will hide published by Ecco on Sept 15, 2020.^[15]

Reception

At the review human website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, significance book received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 32 reviews: 8 "Rave" reviews, 11 "Positive" reviews, 11 "Mixed" reviews, illustrious 2 "Pan" reviews.^[16]

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

Publishers Weekly called it a "doorstopper biography" but felt the manual was "likely to deter term but her most ardent admirers" due to its length.^[18]

In squeeze up review for The Atlantic, Merve Emre panned the biography similarly a failure of its foray and criticized Moser's interpretation indicate Sontag as clinical and relying on "armchair psychology".

Emre further called it "no more in the mind revealing" than Sontag's diaries crestfallen the unauthorized biography by Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of expansive Icon (2000) ISBN 978-0-393-04928-2.^[19]

Publication history

Film adaptation

In February 2023, it was proclaimed that a biographical film change by Kirsten Johnson and star Kristen Stewart as Sontag was in development, with a utilizable title of Sontag.

Filming progression expected to take place remark California, New York, Paris advocate Sarajevo in late 2023.^[23]

References

External links