Bücher von Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag's On Photography is a seminal and groundbreaking work on the subject.Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the 'insatiability of the photographing eye' has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In these six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives.'Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual of appetites'The Times'A brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world, and at ourselves'Washington Post'The most original and illuminating study of the subject'New YorkerOne of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.

On Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deserves.For the most part written in the 1970s during the height of second-wave feminism, Sontag's essays are strikingly relevant to our contemporary conversations. At times powerfully in sync and at others powerfully at odds with them, they are always characteristically original in their examinations of the 'biological division of labour', the double-standard for ageing and the dynamics of women's powerlessness and women's power.As Merve Emre writes in her introduction, 'They offer us the spectacle of a ferocious intellect setting itself to the task at hand: to articulate the politics and aesthetics of being a woman in the United States, the Americas and the world.''One of America's greatest public intellectuals' Observer'Susan Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual of appetites' The Times'At the time she died, she was America's best-known public intellectual. To my mind, she was also the most exemplary' John Gray, New StatesmanWITH A PREFACE BY MERVE EMRE

The story of In America is inspired by the emigration to America in 1876 of Helena Modrzejewska, Poland's most celebrated actress, accompanied by her husband, Count Karol Chlapowski, her fifteen-year-old son, Rudolf, the young journalist and future author of Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz, and a few friends; their brief sojourn in Anaheim, California; and Modrzejewska's subsequent triumphant career on the American stage under the name Helena Modjeska.

Reborn is the compelling and frank early diary of Susan Sontag.'Vivid, exhilarating, often moving . . . charts the development of a good writer and an important critic'Sunday Telegraph'I intend to do everything . . . I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly . . .everything matters!'This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence though to when Sontag was in her early thirties. It is an astonishingly affecting, honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.'Fascinating. One can feel Sontag's mind beginning to ripen and bloom, and the full force of the intellectual originality that would be her hallmark emerging' Guardian'Inspirational. Sontag shows us not just the importance, but the exhilaration of being earnest' New Statesman'A fascinating document of her apprenticeship, charting her earnest quest for education, identity, and voice. Reborn is overwhelmingly a record of an inner landscape' New York Review of Books'One of the finest American writers, thinkers, and political activists of the past four decades . . . an intimate portrait of her early life' Independent on SundayOne of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.

Die intellektuelle Ikone Susan Sontag über Gleichheit, weibliches Altern, Schönheit und Sexualität - "Eine brillante, schillernde Intelligenz" (The Times)Was bedeutet es, eine Frau zu sein? Der neue Essayband von Susan Sontag stellt genau diese Frage. Erstmals versammelt ein Buch ihre wichtigsten Texte zu ästhetischen, politischen und ökonomischen Aspekten des Frauseins. Und "beim heutigen Lesen kann man nur staunen über deren ihrer Zeit vorauseilendes Genie" (The New Yorker). Sontag schreibt über Gleichheit, weibliches Altern, Schönheit, Sexualität und Macht und zeigt sich als Vordenkerin und Visionärin im Kampf um echte Gleichberechtigung. "Solange sich nicht ändert, wer Macht hat und was Macht ist, gibt es keine Befreiung, sondern nur Beschwichtigung", konstatiert sie. "Über Frauen" wehrt sich gegen jede Form von Beschwichtigung und ist in seinen Beobachtungen und Forderungen aktueller denn je für jeden feministischen Diskurs.

'A brilliant, glittering intelligence' Sunday TimesOn Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deservesWritten during the height of second-wave feminism, Sontag's essays remain strikingly relevant to our contemporary conversations. At times powerfully in sync and at others powerfully at odds with them, they are always characteristically original in their examinations of the 'biological division of labour', the double-standard for ageing and the dynamics of women's power and powerlessness.As Merve Emre writes in her introduction, On Women offers us 'the spectacle of a ferocious intellect setting itself to the task at hand: to articulate the politics and aesthetics of being a woman in the United States, the Americas and the world.''Boldly provocative' iNews'On Women demonstrates a powerful mind and equally forceful personality' The Herald

»Ihre Prosa gibt ein schmerzhaftes Gefühl von Ungewissheit preis.« The New Yorker Susan Sontags wichtigste Erzählungen erstmals auf Deutsch - darunter die Beschreibung ihres Besuchs bei Thomas Mann 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. Mit einem Nachwort von Verena Lueken.

A Financial Times Best Book of 2012 From the turbulent years of her trip to Hanoi at the peak of the Vietnam War to her time making films in Sweden and up to the eve of the 1980 election, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh documents the evolution of an extraordinary mind. The 1966 publication of Against Interpretation propelled Susan Sontag from the periphery of New York City's artistic and intellectual milieu into the international spotlight, solidifying her place as a dominant force in the world of ideas. These entries are an invaluable record of the inner workings of one of the most inquisitive and analytical thinkers of the twentieth century.

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 speeches written in the last years of Sontag's life, when her work was being honored on the international stage. She writes of the freedom of literature, about courage and resistance, and 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. David Rieff describes his mother's passion in his foreword: "She wanted to experience everything, taste everything, go everywhere, do everything. Indeed, if I had only one word with which to evoke her, it would be avidity. . . . I think that, for her, the joy of living and the joy of knowing really were one and the same."

Thirty-five years after her first collection, the now classic Against Interpretation, America's most important essayist has chosen more than forty longer and shorter pieces from the last twenty years. Divided into three sections, the first "Reading" includes ardent pieces on writers from her own private canon - Machado de Assis, Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Borges, Tsvetaeva, and Elizabeth Hardwick. In the second, "Seeing" she shares her passions for film, dance, photography, painting, opera, and theater. And in the final section, "There and Here" Sontag explores her own commitments to the work (and activism) of conscience and to the vocation of the writer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alice in Bed is a free dramatic fantasy based on the life of Alice James (1848-92), the brilliant sister of William and Henry James. The waters of depression closed over Alice James when she was nineteen; she tried to summon the courage to commit suicide, she suffered from a variety of vague and debilitating ailments, she went abroad, she stayed in bed, she kept a diary, and she died... at age forty-three. In Susan Sontag's play, Alice James merges imaginatively with the other great Alice of her period, the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A tea party is convened where Alice is counseled by Emily Dickinson and Margaret Fuller and by two exemplary angry women from the nineteenth-century stage: Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis (from Giselle), and Kundry (from Wagner's Parsifal), the guilt-ridden woman who wants to sleep. Alice in Bed is a play about the anguish and grief and rage of women, about mental traveling, about the triumphs and limitations of the imagination. It is a powerful and memorable addition to Susan Sontag's achievement as a writer.

Europa im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, eine Zeit der revolutionären Umbrüche, der neuen Orientierungen und der restaurativen Tendenzen - diese dramatische Epoche bildet den historischen Hintergrund für Susan Sontags »ambitionierten erzählerischen Versuch, eine der bekanntesten und wahrschein-lich aufs genaueste dokumentierten Dreiecksbeziehungen der Weltgeschichte« (Johannes Willms) darzustellen: die zwischen Sir William Hamilton, dem britischen Gesandten in Neapel, seiner um 51 Jahre jüngeren Frau Emma und Lord Nelson, dem Seehelden Englands.Sir William Hamilton - Altertumsforscher, leidenschaftlicher Sammler und Diplomat - ist der »Vulcano Lover«, der bei den Ausgrabungen von Herculaneum und Pompeji zugegen war und oftmals den Vesuv bestieg. Fasziniert von der unberechenbaren Naturgewalt des Vulkans und gleichermaßen gefesselt von der Kunst der schönen Dinge, die er sammelt, verkörpert Sir Hamilton in idealer Weise den für seine Zeit typischen, durch Besitz und Bildung ausgezeichneten, interessierten Dilettanten. Den Gipfel aller Natur- und Kunstfreude aber glaubt er in der wegen ihrer außerordentlichen Schönheit gerühmten Emma gefunden zu haben, die wiederum dem Held der Seeschlacht am Nil ihre Gunst schenkt. Um dieses Dreigestirn bewegen sich die anderen Personen des Romans: der fette und politisch inkompetente König von Neapel und seine Königin Maria Karolina, eine enge Freundin Emmas, der dekadente Dandy William Beckford, die adelige Revolutionärin und Dichterin Eleonora Fonseca de Pimentel und als Zaungast - Goethe auf seiner italienischen Reise. Beherrscht aber wird die Szenerie vom Vesuv, der sich über der Stadt erhebt und ihrem lebensgierigen, leichtsinnigen Treiben eine bedrohliche Atmosphäre verleiht. Susan Sontag hat am Fuß des feuerspeienden Vesuvs Menschen zusammengeführt, die das Drama des Umbruchs in Europa exemplarisch aufführen.

Bereits mit fünfzehn vertiefte sie sich in Rilke und Gide, mit siebzehn heiratete sie ihren Professor: Susan Sontag war eine ungewöhnliche Frau. Ihr Lebenshunger und ihre unstillbare Wissbegierde führten die junge Intellektuelle von Kalifornien nach Chicago, später nach Paris und New York. Die frühen Tagebuchnotizen der Kunstbegeisterten bieten unvermutete Einblicke in ihre widersprüchliche Persönlichkeit: Das Private - ihre Ehekrise, ihre Liebschaften und ihre Homosexualität - sind der Anlass für weitreichende, tiefsinnige Betrachtungen. Ihr intimes Selbstporträt ist das Zeugnis eines einzigartigen intellektuellen Werdegangs und gleichzeitig ein Zeitdokument ersten Rangs.

"Mein Leben ist mein Kapital, das Kapital meiner Imagination", sagte Susan Sontag einmal. Ihre Tagebücher sind Spiegel dieses Selbstverständnisses, das bei ihr auch immer an die Politik geknüpft war. Zentral sind ihr Aufenthalt in Hanoi und ihr Engagement in den USA gegen den Vietnamkrieg, ihre Begegnung mit Mary McCarthy und Reisen nach China, Marokko und Israel. In den Jahren 1964 bis 1980, die geprägt sind von ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit der Kunst von John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper John und vor allem Joseph Brodsky, entstehen auch Sontags bedeutendste Bücher. In diesen Tagebüchern legt eine der außergewöhnlichsten Intellektuellen des 20. Jahrhunderts das intime Zeugnis ihrer Reifejahre ab.Die Übersetzung wurde von der Brougier-Seisser-Cleve-Werhahn-Stiftung gefördert: www.bscw-stiftung.de.

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.

In America is a kaleidoscopic portrait of America on the cusp of modernity. As she did in her enormously popular novel The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag casts a story located in the past in a fresh, provocative light to create a fictional world full of contemporary resonance. In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalezowska, Poland's greatest actress, emigrate to the United States and travel to California to found a "utopian commune." When the commune fails, Maryna stays, learns English, and-as Marina Zalenska-forges a new, even more triumphant career on the American stage, becoming a diva on par with Sara Bernhardt. In America is about many things: a woman's search for self-transformation; the fate of idealism; a life in the theater; the many varieties of love; and, not least of all, stories and storytelling itself. Operatic in the scope and intensity of the emotions it depicts, richly detailed and visionary in its account of America, and peopled with unforgettable characters.In America is the winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Fiction.