New Releases by Susan Sontag

Despite their status as intellectual giants of the twentieth century, John Berger and Susan Sontag’s artistic collaboration – and intense friendship – remains virtually unknown. Published for the first time, To Tell a Story offers a glimpse into their shared history that spanned nearly a quarter-century. From sources such as their eponymous film broadcast, rare personal letters and archival recordings, the composite fragments build a portrait of a relationship that was often lively and challenging, sometimes trivial and always affectionate. Berger and Sontag’s voices echo throughout these pages, riffing off the other as they grapple with their respective concerns. Above all, their conversations reveal a deep reciprocal admiration and an exchange of ideas about storytelling, the self and society that informed their own work.

' Peut-être esquivera-t-elle d’une plaisanterie, ou refusera-t-elle de répondre avec une indignation mutine. “Ce n’est pas le genre de question qu’on pose à une dame !” Ou bien, après un instant d’hésitation, embarrassée mais bravache, il est possible qu’elle dise la vérité. Ou qu’elle mente. De toute façon, ni la vérité, ni l’esquive, ni le mensonge ne la soulageront du caractère désagréable de la question. Pour une femme, se voir contrainte d’avouer le nombre de ses années est, passé un certain âge, toujours une petite épreuve. '

Una introducción concisa y brillante a la obra de Susan Sontag sobre las mujeres, que reúne sus primeros ensayos, varios de ellos inéditos en español, relativos al envejecimiento, la igualdad, la belleza, la sexualidad y el fascismo. Susan Sontag fue una de las pensadoras más formidables, originales e influyentes del siglo pasado. «Las ideas más interesantes son las herejías», sostenía. Y en efecto: sus escritos descartan lo trillado y se niegan a seguir las líneas partidistas. De las mujeres ofrece siete ensayos y debates sobre una amplia gama de asuntos: los desafíos y humillaciones a las que se enfrentan las mujeres a medida que envejecen; la relación entre la liberación de la mujer y la lucha de clases; la belleza, que Sontag llama «esa pócima demasiado pesada de tantos consabidos opuestos»; el feminismo; el fascismo; y el cine. En conjunto, estos análisis, reacios a la fácil categorización, muestran no sólo su curiosidad implacable, su precisión histórica y su vigor político, sino la inimitable mente de Sontag en acción.

A pithy and brilliant introduction to Susan Sontag’s writing on women, gathering early essays on aging, equality, beauty, sexuality, and fascism Susan Sontag was one of the most formidable, original, and influential thinkers of the last century. “The most interesting ideas are heresies,” she remarked, and indeed, her writing rejects the familiar and refuses party lines. On Women presents seven essays and exchanges, spanning a range of subjects: the challenges and humiliations women face as they age; the relationship between women’s liberation and class struggle; beauty, which Sontag calls “that over-rich brew of so many familiar opposites”; feminism; fascism; and film. Taken together, these pieces—relentlessly curious, historically precise, politically robust, and allergic to easy categorization Sontag’s inimitable mind at work.

蘇珊．桑塔格（Susan Sontag） 經典 攝影理論、攝影史、文化評論名作 所有運用影像創作、拍照、攝影的人必讀！ ★《論攝影》於一九七七年出版，榮獲當年美國國家書評獎 至今仍不斷引發廣泛的討論回響，被譽為「攝影界的《聖經》」。 攝影影像無所不在。它們擁有震撼、引誘人心，或讓人理想化的能力；它們創造一種鄉愁感並讓人將其當成記憶來使用；它們被當成證據來反對我們或認同我們。 ｜內容簡介｜ 桑塔格透過六篇尖銳鋒利的評論，檢視攝影的社會角色。 從「柏拉圖的洞穴」此一古典的哲論開始，桑塔格宛如持著手術刀般精準切開「攝影」的運作邏輯；接著從影像的流派（如現代主義、超現實主義）、用途發展（如肖像攝影、戰地攝影）與特質，談論影像與「繪畫」、「電影」等藝術的異同，直指當代社會的流變與肌理。〈影像世界〉一文則藉由安東尼奧尼的電影「中國」，試論影像與政治控制的社會特質。最後回顧柏拉圖的洞穴此譬喻，回顧影像的形義與現實世界的關係。最後，〈引語選粹〉則宛如萬花筒般，摘錄多則與前文相互呼應的精妙攝影語錄。 全書文字不過分沉重，信手拈來評論攝影史的重要作品，論述精準且歷久彌新。 內容有關攝影的媒體論、攝影作為研究社會的方法論、攝影與其他藝術之間的研究，最終，桑塔格亦是叩問—— 這些無所不在的影像是如何影響我們觀看世界的方式？我們又是如何倚賴這些影像為我們的生活提供現實感和權威性？ ｜專文推薦｜ ★ 郭力昕 攝影評論者，政大傳播學院教授兼院長 ★ 陳耀成 導演及文化評論家 ｜經典讚譽｜ ★ 一本非常重要又具原創性的作品……今日，凡是想深入探討或分析攝影在我們這個富裕的大眾媒體社會中扮演了何種角色，都必須從她的這本書開始。 —— 約翰．伯格 ★ 對過去一百四十年來，攝影影像如何深刻改變了我們觀看世界和自身的方式，提出精采的分析。 ——《華盛頓郵報．書世界》 ★ 沒有多少照片能勝過桑塔格的千言萬語。 ——羅伯．休斯《時代》 ★ 因為桑塔格，我們再也不能小看攝影，它不只是藝術界的主力，更是一股日益強大的力量，影響著我們這個全球化社會的本質和命運。 ——《新聞週刊》 ★ 這個主題最具原創性和啟發性的研究。 ——卡爾文．崔林，《紐約客》 ★ 每一頁都以最恰當的方式，針對攝影這個主題提出重要而激烈的質問。 ——《紐約時報書評》 ★ 《論攝影》不僅是一本論述攝影的經典著作，而且是一本論述廣泛意義上的現代文化的經典著作，一部分原因是在現代社會裏攝影影像無所不在，覆蓋我們生活的方方面面。它不是一本關於攝影的專業著作，書中也沒有多少攝影術語，儘管有志於攝影者，無疑都應人手一冊。 在這本著作中，桑塔格深入地探討攝影的本質，包括攝影是不是藝術，攝影與繪畫的互相影響，攝影與真實世界的關係，攝影的捕食性和侵略性等等。她認為攝影本質上是超現實的，不是因為攝影採取了超現實主義的表達手法，而是因為超現實主義就隱藏在攝影企業的核心。 攝影表面上是反映現實，但實際上攝影影像自成一個世界，一個影像世界，企圖取代真實世界，給觀者造成影像即是現實的印象，給影像擁有者造成擁有影像即是擁有實際經驗的錯覺。 對讀者而言，這本書的豐富性和深刻性不在於桑塔格得出什麼結論，而在於她的論述過程和解剖方法。這是一種抽絲剝繭的論述，一種冷靜而鋒利的解剖。精采紛呈，使人目不暇接。桑塔格一向以其莊嚴的文體著稱，但她的挖苦和諷刺在這本著作中亦得到充分的發揮。 ——摘自〈譯後記〉 「一張照片不只是一次事件與一名攝影者遭遇的結果； 拍照本身就是一次事件，而且是一次擁有更霸道的權利的事件──干預、入侵或忽略正在發生的無論什麼事情。」 ——桑塔格 【桑塔格作品集】 節錄 《論攝影》 On Photography, 1977 《土星座下：桑塔格論七位思想藝術大師》 Under the Sign of Saturn, 1980 《疾病的隱喻》 Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors,1989 《蘇珊．桑塔格文選》 Selected Writings by Susan Sontag, 2002 《旁觀他人之痛苦》 Regarding the Pain of Others, 2003

Qu'est-ce que le «Camp»? Une façon de voir le monde autant qu'une manière d'être, selon Sontag. Cet art de valoriser l'artifice pourrait avoir pris corps pour la première fois dans Les Fourberies de Scapin de Molière, en 1671, autour de la figure de Louis XIV. Mozart, Greta Garbo et sa beauté androgyne, le film King Kong de 1933... tous incarnent la sensibilité Camp - un mélange d'extravagance, de ludisme et de sérieux. Le Camp, en tant que subversion des normes sexuelles, est aussi une forme d'expression et un regard propre aux communautés queer. À travers Le Style Camp et Culture et sensibilité d'aujourd'hui, Susan Sontag théorise notre «nouvelle sensibilité» et redéfinit la fonction de l'art depuis la révolution industrielle. Premiers textes critiques à abolir les frontières entre «haute» et «basse» culture, ces deux essais emblématiques comptent parmi les plus influents des années 1960 et ont fait de Susan Sontag une véritable sensation littéraire.

»Ihre Prosa gibt ein schmerzhaftes Gefühl von Ungewissheit preis.« (New Yorker) – Susan Sontags wichtigste Erzählungen endlich auf Deutsch Es sind Lebensthemen, die Susan Sontag in ihren Erzählungen bewegen: Mit 14 besucht sie Thomas Mann in seinem kalifornischen Exil – mit hinreißender Ironie beschreibt sie die Verletzlichkeit ihres jugendlichen Ichs. Jahre später erfährt Sontag von der AIDS-Diagnose eines engen Freundes – ihre Ängste und Hoffnungen werden zum Stimmenchor des intellektuellen New York. Und lange nach ihren berühmten Essays über Fotografie beschäftigt sie sich wieder mit dem Verhältnis von Bildern und Realität – in der Geschichte von einem Vogel und einem Nachkommen Noahs. Dieser Band versammelt wichtige Erzählungen der großen amerikanischen Autorin endlich auf Deutsch – sie zeigen sie von ihrer persönlichsten Seite.

‘Sontag herinnert ons eraan dat scherp en onafhankelijk nadenken – over politiek, over kunst, over seks, over ziekte – meer is dan een teken van intelligentie. Ze herinnert ons eraan dat het een morele opgave is.’ – Joost de Vries MET NIEUW VERTAALDE ESSAYS Tegen interpretatie is Susan Sontags non-fictiedebuut waarmee ze de National Book Award won. Het is een bundeling van haar bekendste en belangrijkste essays over stijl in de kunst, schrijvers, toneel, film en over culturele verschijnselen – zoals het beroemde ‘Notities over “camp”’. Alle denken is interpretatie, maar dat betekent niet dat het af en toe onjuist is tégen interpretatie te zijn. De essays van Susan Sontag zijn hartstochtelijke, overtuigende commentaren op onze maatschappij, van een groot denker en scherp essayist met een inspirerend, radicaal gedachtegoed. ‘Tegen interpretatie verblindt vanwege de eruditie die destijds indrukwekkend was, en nu nog steeds.’ – Benjamin Moser, auteur van de biografie Sontag. Haar leven en werk ‘Telkens stimulerend, opvallend profetisch.’ – The Independent ‘Een duizelingwekkende intellectuele prestatie.’ – Vogue ‘Sontag levert voldoende stof tot nadenken om de grootste intellectuele honger te stillen.’ – The Times

‘Nog altijd domineert Over fotografie het denken over fotografie. De schrijfstijl is vintage Sontag: trefzeker, stoer en stellig. Ze bracht de angsten en ambivalenties die veel mensen voelen tegenover moderne technologie in het algemeen, en fotografie in het bijzonder, messcherp onder woorden. Zelfs nu kun je amper een column, recensie of boek over fotografie lezen waarin Sontag niet wordt aangehaald – zeker wanneer het over foto’s van oorlog, honger of geweld gaat.’ – Lynn Berger in De Correspondent Over fotografie is een boeiend relaas over wat foto’s eigenlijk zijn, over esthetische en morele problemen waarmee we door hun alomtegenwoordigheid in onze mediacultuur worden geconfronteerd en over de (on)bedoelde effecten van fotografie. Het is een klassiek geworden, baanbrekend onderzoek naar de rol en de betekenis van beelden. Sontag weet het moderne leven zo scherpzinnig te vangen dat kritische vragen niet uit kunnen blijven. ‘Sontag heeft ons als geen ander geleerd na te denken over de rol en het effect van fotografie in onze tijd. Prachtige essays.’ – Trouw ‘Een mijlpaal in de reflectie over fotografie. De opstellen over camp en pornografie zijn virtuoos.’ – De Tijd ‘Over fotografie is het origineelste en meest verlichte boek over dit onderwerp.’ – The New Yorker ‘Elke pagina roept belangrijke en prikkelende vragen op, en bespreekt die vervolgens op de beste, briljante manier.’ – The New York Times Book Review

From one of the greatest prose stylists of any generation, the essay that inspired the theme of the 2019 Met Gala, Camp: Notes on Fashion Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility—unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it—that goes by the cult name of “Camp.” So begins Susan Sontag’s seminal essay “Notes on ‘Camp.’ ” Originally published in 1964 and included in her landmark debut essay collection Against Interpretation, Sontag’s notes set out to define something that even the most well-informed could describe only as “I know it when I see it.” At once grounded in a sweeping history (Louis XIV was pure Camp) and entirely provisional, Camp delights in low and high culture alike. Tiffany lamps, the androgynous beauty of Greta Garbo, King Kong (1933), and Mozart all embody the Camp sensibility for Sontag—an almost ineffable blend of artifice, extravagance, playfulness, and a deadly seriousness. At the time Sontag published her essay, Camp, as a subversion of sexual norms, had also become a private code of signification for queer communities. In nearly every genre and form—from visual art, décor, and fashion to writing, music, and film—Camp continues to be redefined today, as seen in the 2019 Met Gala that took Sontag’s essay as the basis for its theme. “Style is everything,” Sontag tells us, and as Time magazine points out, “ ‘Notes on “Camp” ’ launched a new way of thinking,” paving the way for a whole new style of cultural criticism, and describing what is, in many ways, the defining sensibility of our culture today.

''Magnificent... Her famous seriousness pervades throughout... What''s striking is the astonishing scope, potential and possibility Sontag saw in short fiction'' Financial Times The complete collected short stories of Susan Sontag, one of the most brilliant and influential writers of the twentieth century Susan Sontag is most often remembered as a brilliant essayist - inquisitive, analytical, fearlessly outspoken. Yet all throughout her life, she also wrote short stories: fictions which wrestled with those ideas and preoccupations she couldn''t address in essay form. These short fictions are allegories, parables, autobiographical vignettes, each capturing an authentic fragment of life, dramatizing Sontag''s private griefs and fears. Stories collects all of Sontag''s short fiction for the first time. This astonishingly versatile collection showcases its peerless writer at the height of her powers. For any Sontag fan, it is an unmissable testament to her creative achievements. ''Sontag is one of the most influential critics of her generation'' New York Review of Books

An unprecedented collection of the controversial later writings of the greatest and most provocative critic of our time. Susan Sontag was the most influential critic of her time. This second volume in Library of America's definitive Sontag edition gathers all the collected essays and speeches from her last quarter-century, brilliant works whose subjects, from the AIDS epidemic, 9/11, the Iraq war, and the perverse allure of Fascism to painting, dance, music, film, and scintillating literary portraits of such writers as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Antonin Artaud, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Nadine Gordimer, Joseph Brodsky, W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetayeva, and Robert Walser, bear enduring witness to passionate curiosity and expansive intellect. She brings to every subject an unwavering focus and intensity, and a deep commitment to "extending our sense of what a human life can be," as she said on accepting the Jerusalem Prize in 2000. An account of her 1993 residence in war-torn Sarajevo to stage a production of Waiting for Godot becomes a meditation on the meaning of culture: "Culture, serious culture, is an expression of human dignity-which is what people in Sarajevo feel they have lost." AIDS and Its Metaphors marks a further development of the central ideas of her classic Illness as Metaphor, while Regarding the Pain of Others explores eloquently the troubling moral issues surrounding photographic depictions of violence, cruelty, and atrocity. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Ensaios clássicos de uma das maiores intelectuais do século XX em edição acessível. A vontade radical, segunda coletânea de ensaios de Susan Sontag, dá continuidade às investigações empreendidas em seu livro anterior, Contra a interpretação. São textos escritos entre 1966 e 1969 que tratam de cinema, literatura, política e, caso do mais célebre deles, pornografia. Os cineastas Ingmar Bergman e Jean-Luc Godard, o dramaturgo Samuel Beckett e os escritores Rainer Maria Rilke e William Burroughs compõem o panteão da cultura moderna analisado nesses textos. Completam o volume reflexões agudas sobre o pensamento do filósofo romeno Emil Cioran e ainda o clássico libelo contra a guerra do Vietnã, escrito por ocasião da visita de Sontag a Hanói.

Like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Marguerite Duras, Susan Sontag has come to filmmaking in the course of a career as a novelist and essayist. In 1968 she accepted a Swedish studio''s invitation to write and direct a move in Stockholm. Duet for Cannibals is the result. Frederic Tuten, in Vogue magazine, wrote: "Duet for Cannibals is a witty, bone-dry serio-comedy that fascinates and disturbs in turn....Dr. Arthur Bauer, attractive in a swinish way, fiftyish, arch-revolutionary theoretician engaged in writing his memoirs, is Sontag''s anti- or false revolutionary, an arrogant, self-aggrandizing trickster who blurs together revolution and his ego. Francesca, Bauer''s neurotic, elegantly seductive wife, supports her husband''s mystifications while composing her own. Tomas, an earnest student revolutionary hired by Bauer to catalogue his documents, and Ingrid, Tomas''s impressionable girlfriend, are the fodder for the elder couple''s psychological and sexual feast." With this film Susan Sontag joins the company of writers-filmmakers and offers her own special contribution to cinematic art. Note: This eBook edition does not contain images.

First published in 1967, Death Kit--Susan Sontag''s second novel--is a classic of modern fiction. Blending realism and dream, it offers a passionate exploration of the recesses of the American conscience.

Includes the essay "Notes on Camp," the inspiration for the 2019 exhibition Notes on Fashion: Camp at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag''s first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the groundbreaking essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation," as well as her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought. This edition has a new afterword, "Thirty Years Later," in which Sontag restates the terms of her battle against philistinism and against ethical shallowness and indifference.

This third essay collection by America''s leading essayist brings together her most important critical writing from 1972 to 1980, in which she explores some of the most influential artists and thinkers of our time.

Styles of Radical Will, Susan Sontag''s second collection of essays, extends the investigations she undertook in Against Interpretation with essays on film, literature, politics, and a groundbreaking study of pornography.

In eight stories, this singular collection of short fiction written over the course of ten years explores the terrain of modern urban life. In reflective, telegraphic prose, Susan Sontag confronts the reader with exposed workings of an impassioned intellect in narratives seamed with many of the themes of her essays—the nature of knowing, our relationship with the past, and the future in an alienated present.

Set in 18th century Naples, based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his celebrated wife Emma, and Lord Nelson, and peopled with many of the great figures of the day, this unconventional, bestselling historical romance from the National Book Award-winning author of In America touches on themes of sex and revolution, the fate of nature, art and the collector''s obsessions, and, above all, love.

The Benefactor, Susan Sontag''s first book and first novel, originally published in 1963, introduced a unique writer to the world. In the form of a memoir by a latter-day Candide named Hippolyte, The Benefactor leads us on a kind of psychic Grand Tour, in which Hippolyte''s violently imaginative dream life becomes indistinguishable from his surprising experiences in the ''real world.'' Sontag''s novel supplies a fascinating, knowing, acerbic portrait of a certain bohemian demimonde that flourished in France until quite recently. More important, The Benefactor is a novel about ideas-especially religious ideas-unlike any other: funny, acrobatic, disturbing, profound.

Renacida es el primer volumen de los diarios de Susan Sontag, editado por su hijo David Rieff. Ensayista, novelista, Premio de la Paz de los libreros alemanes, Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las letras, Susan Sontag fue una de las intelectuales más implacables e inconformistas del siglo XX. Renacida es el primer volumen de sus diarios personales, editados por su hijo David Rieff. «Afirmar que estos diarios son reveladores es un drástico eufemismo. Uno de los principales dilemas en mi decisión de publicarlos ha sido que, al menos en la última etapa de su vida, mi madre no fue en ningún sentido una persona proclive a la confidencia. En particular evitaba hasta donde le era posible, sin negarla, toda referencia a su homosexualidad o todo reconocimiento de su propia ambición. Así que mi decisión sin duda viola su intimidad. No hay otra manera de describirlo con imparcialidad. [...] El criterio de selección fue determinado en parte por mi impresión de que la crudeza y el retrato sin retoques que estos materiales presentan de una Susan Sontag joven, que de modo consciente y con determinación acometió la creación de una identidad que deseaba, era el aspecto más fascinante de los diarios. Por ello decidí titular este volumen Renacida, procedente de una frase que figura al comienzo de los primeros diarios, pues me parece que compendia lo que mi madre fue a partir de su infancia.»

"A writer is someone who pays attention to the world," Susan Sontag said in her 2003 acceptance speech for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and no one exemplified this definition more than she. Sontag''s incisive intelligence, expressive brilliance, and deep curiosity about art, politics, and the writer''s responsibility to bear witness have secured her place as one of the most important thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. At the Same Time gathers sixteen essays and addresses written in the last years of Sontag''s life, when her work was being honored on the international stage, that reflect on the personally liberating nature of literature, her deepest commitment, and on political activism and resistance to injustice as an ethical duty. She considers the works of writers from the little-known Soviet novelist Leonid Tsypkin, who struggled and eventually succeeded in publishing his only book days before his death; to the greats, such as Nadine Gordimer, who enlarge our capacity for moral judgment. Sontag also fearlessly addresses the dilemmas of post-9/11 America, from the degradation of our political rhetoric to the appalling torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. At the Same Time, which includes a foreword by her son, David Rieff, is a passionate, compelling work from an American writer at the height of her powers, who always saw literature "as a passport to enter a larger life, the zone of freedom."

Para Susan Sontag, un escritor no era ms que un viajero mental y, para ensear con el ejemplo, nos dej este conjunto admirable de ensayos que no son otra cosa que los diferentes episodios de un viaje que toca muchos puertos. La escritora norteamericana dividi sus textos en tres bloques. En el primero, reuni artculos sobre otros escritores y sobre algunos de los libros que am; en el segundo, los dedicados a las artes de la mirada (la danza, la pintura, la fotografa) y por ltimo, en la parte final, unas notas acerca de cuestiones de teora literaria junto con los relatos de la experiencia de la autora en el asedio de Sarajevo, o algunas pginas autobiogrficas.