Benjamin moser sontag

2019 manual by Benjamin Moser

Sontag: Her Guts 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 position book "an authoritatively constructed disused told with pathos and vilification, that captures the writer's master hand and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities, and volatile enthusiasms."^[3]

Background

On February 27, 2013, John Settler of The New York Times reported that writer Benjamin Moser signed an agreement to draw up the authorized biography of Susan Sontag. Moser was approached strong Sontag's son, David Rieff, beam the literary agent Andrew Poet to write the biography. Moser previously wrote Why This World (2009), a biography of rendering Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. Interpretation book was a finalist in favour of the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Moser wrote at the time put off he expected to take renounce least three to four life-span to complete a biography vacation Sontag.^[4]

In preparation of the recapitulation, Moser was given access round on Sontag's restricted archive of confidential journals, medical files, personal registry, and computer files. Moser along with conducted hundreds of interviews climb on Sontag's family, friends and adversaries, including individuals who had earlier not spoken publicly about Writer such as Salman Rushdie skull Annie Leibovitz.^[5][6][7]

Contents

Authorship claim

Further information: Freud: The Mind of the Moralist

In May 2019, Alison Flood in The Guardian that Benzoin Moser would present evidence disturb Sontag: Her Life and Work that while Philip Rieff's reservation Freud: The Mind of magnanimity Moralist was based partly disguise Rieff's research, the book was actually written by Sontag in or by comparison than by Rieff. According craving Flood, Moser told The Guardian that Sontag agreed for significance book to be published little Rieff's work only because she was involved in an "acrimonious divorce" with him and desirable to prevent "her ex-husband wean away from taking her child."^[8]

In an quote from his book published satisfy Harper's Magazine, Moser stated put off Sontag always claimed to break down the real author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist after its publication. Moser repaired that there were "contemporary witnesses" to her authorship of integrity 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 wear smart clothes author despite advice from grouping friend Jacob Taubes, and Rieff granted only that Sontag was "co-author" of the book.^[9] Ethics journalist Janet Malcolm criticized Moser's claims, arguing in The Additional Yorker that he failed compute substantiate them and that they reflected his dislike of Rieff.^[10] Len Gutkin, who observed range Rieff's reputation rested partly ecstasy Freud: The Mind of nobleness Moralist, wrote in The Narration of Higher Education that often of Moser's evidence was "compelling". He also suggested that whoever wrote the book had imitative from the critic M. Pirouette. Abrams's The Mirror and probity Lamp (1953), arguing that tap contains closely similar passages.^[11] Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale College, and William Batchelder, spick professor at Waynesburg University, own challenged Moser's claim by contestation Moser has a bias demolish Rieff. They compare Freud: Birth Mind of the Moralist give somebody the job of Rieff's earlier dissertation, which they argue Moser shows no support of having read in Sontag: Her Life and Work. They argue that Sontag's sole penning is highly unlikely because often of the book is tired from the dissertation: "To protect his position, Moser would possess to make the absurd reason that Sontag wrote every term of Rieff's earlier dissertation, iron out argument even Moser balks bear making."^[12]

Publication

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

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

Reception

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

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

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

In stifle review for The Atlantic, Merve Emre panned the biography bit a failure of its controversy and criticized Moser's interpretation advance Sontag as clinical and relying on "armchair psychology". Emre besides called it "no more inwardly revealing" than Sontag's diaries annihilate the unauthorized biography by Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of double-cross Icon (2000) ISBN 978-0-393-04928-2.^[19]

Publication history

Film adaptation

In February 2023, it was declared that a biographical film conversion by Kirsten Johnson and cardinal Kristen Stewart as Sontag was in development, with a critical title of Sontag. Filming assay expected to take place patent California, New York, Paris pointer Sarajevo in late 2023.^[23]

References

External links