Susan Sontag On Writing, Personal Growth, and Artistic Growth

Susan Sontag discusses writing, personal growth, political activism, and artistic growth. Sontag was an American writer, journalist, philosopher, and political activist. Over the course of her career she wrote essays, published novels, directed movies, and more. Her work includes:

Fiction
(1963) The Benefactor
(1967) Death Kit
(1977) I, etcetera (Collection of short stories)
(1991) "The Way We Live Now" (short story)
(1992) The Volcano Lover
(1999) In America

Plays
(1990) The Way We Live Now
(1991) A Parsifal
(1993) Alice in Bed

Nonfiction
Collections of essays
(1966) Against Interpretation (includes popular essay, Notes on "Camp")
(1969) Styles of Radical Will
(1977) On Photography
(1980) Under the Sign of Saturn
(2001) Where the Stress Falls

Sontag's writing appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Partisan Review and the London Review of Books.

Monographs
(1959) Freud: The Mind of the Moralist
(1978) Illness as Metaphor
(1988) AIDS and Its Metaphors
(2003) Regarding the Pain of Others

Films
(1969) Duett för kannibaler (Duet for Cannibals)
(1971) Broder Carl (Brother Carl)
(1974) Promised Lands
(1983) Unguided Tour AKA Letter from Venice

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Thumbnail Image: Susan Sontag photographed in her home 1979 ©Lynn Gilbert

Interviews Referenced:

Charlie Rose, "Susan Sontag talks about her newest book, "In America: A Novel"," Charlie Rose video, 25:10, May 16, 2000, charlierose.com/videos/9102.

Charlie Rose, "Author and human rights activist Susan Sontag, who just returned from Sarajevo, talks about the war in Bosnia and her commitment to helping in any way she can," Charlie Rose video, 25:10, July 2, 1995, charlierose.com/videos/9102.

San Francisco Public Library. (2016, May 3). 2001 Susan Sontag at the San Francisco Public Library [Video]. YouTube.    • 2001 Susan Sontag at the San Francisc...  

BillMoyers.com. (2022, November 30). Susan Sontag: Regarding the Pain of Others [Video]. Vimeo. vimeo.com/124644625