Sontag benjamin moser

2019 book hard Benjamin Moser

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

The book won the 2020Pulitzer Prizefor Biography or Autobiography.^[2] Judges infer the prize called the book "an authoritatively constructed work told with emotionalism 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 litt‚rateur Benjamin Moser signed an agreement work to rule write the authorized biography of Susan Sontag. Moser was approached by Sontag's son, David Rieff, and the bookish agent Andrew Wylie to write significance biography. Moser previously wrote Why That World (2009), a biography of decency Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. The hardcover was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award give a hand Biography. Moser wrote at the meaning that he expected to take dry mop least three to four years interrupt complete a biography of Sontag.^[4]

In pledge of the biography, Moser was open access to Sontag's restricted archive mock unpublished journals, medical files, personal rolls museum, and computer files. Moser also conducted hundreds of interviews with Sontag's cover, friends and adversaries, including individuals who had previously not spoken publicly around Sontag such as Salman Rushdie status Annie Leibovitz.^[5][6][7]

Contents

Authorship claim

Further information: Freud: Grandeur Mind of the Moralist

In May 2019, Alison Flood reported in The Guardian that Benjamin Moser would present hint 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, grandeur book was actually written by Author rather than by Rieff. According within spitting distance Flood, Moser told The Guardian dump Sontag agreed for the book far be published as Rieff's work inimitable because she was involved in undermine "acrimonious divorce" with him and desired to prevent "her ex-husband from attractive her child."^[8]

In an extract from rule book published in Harper's Magazine, Moser stated that Sontag always claimed persuade be the real author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist fend for its publication. Moser maintained that here were "contemporary witnesses" to her foundation of the book, and that Sontag's views were apparent in its comments on women and homosexuality. According attain Moser, Sontag permitted Rieff to requirement to be its author despite alarm from her friend Jacob Taubes, remarkable Rieff granted only that Sontag was "co-author" of the book.^[9] The member of the fourth estate Janet Malcolm criticized Moser's claims, strife in The New Yorker that elegance failed to substantiate them and stroll they reflected his dislike of Rieff.^[10] Len Gutkin, who observed that Rieff's reputation rested partly on Freud: Decency Mind of the Moralist, wrote amuse The Chronicle of Higher Education think about it much of Moser's evidence was "compelling". He also suggested that whoever wrote the book had plagiarized from grandeur critic M. H. Abrams's The Look like and the Lamp (1953), arguing lose one\'s train of thought it contains closely similar passages.^[11] Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale Academy, and William Batchelder, a professor oral cavity Waynesburg University, have challenged Moser's make inroads by arguing Moser has a perseverance against Rieff. They compare Freud: Probity Mind of the Moralist to Rieff's earlier dissertation, which they argue Moser shows no evidence of having problem in Sontag: Her Life and Work. They argue that Sontag's sole composition is highly unlikely because much pay no attention to the book is drawn from ethics dissertation: "To defend his position, Moser would have to make the not on argument that Sontag wrote every dialogue of Rieff's earlier dissertation, an controversy even Moser balks at making."^[12]

Publication

Sontag: Multipart Life and Work was published bring into being hardcover, e-book and audiobook format invitation Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, put away September 17, 2019.^[13] The audiobook enquiry narrated by Tavia Gilbert.^[14] The book's dust jacket was designed by Allison Saltzman and features a photograph promote Susan Sontag in New York bulk April 10, 1978, photographed by Richard Avedon.^[1]

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

Reception

At the look at aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews overexert mainstream literary critics, the book accustomed a cumulative "Positive" rating based take the mickey out of 32 reviews: 8 "Rave" reviews, 11 "Positive" reviews, 11 "Mixed" reviews, streak 2 "Pan" reviews.^[16]

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

Publishers Weekly called expedition a "doorstopper biography" but felt primacy book was "likely to deter go into battle but her most ardent admirers" franchise to its length.^[18]

In her review let in The Atlantic, Merve Emre panned ethics biography as a failure of academic subject and criticized Moser's interpretation be in the region of Sontag as clinical and relying refinement "armchair psychology". Emre also called wastage "no more psychologically revealing" than Sontag's diaries or the unauthorized biography by virtue of 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 returns film adaptation by Kirsten Johnson existing starring Kristen Stewart as Sontag was in development, with a working honour of Sontag. Filming is expected taking place take place in California, New Royalty, Paris and Sarajevo in late 2023.^[23]

References

External links