Hi, welcome to "Her Power".
"Her Power" will take you to understand the outstanding women in literature, art, politics, science and technology, and try to objectively present the difficulties faced by these outstanding women in different eras and their coping methods, so that you can absorb their wisdom and strength.
Today, I will take you to susan Sontag, known as the wisest man on both sides of the Atlantic, the "unofficial literary ally" and "bad girl of literature" in the United States.
Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004), Jewish, was one of the most talked about women writers and art critics in the contemporary West. Her books include "Against Interpretation", "The Style of Radical Will", "On Photography", the novel "Volcano Lover", "In America", the film "CannibalIsm", and the drama "Alice in bed".
Susan Sontag began to read books on her own at the age of 3, began to read systematically at the age of 7, and read a lot as a teenager, which laid a solid foundation for her later literary creation and achievements in the literary and art criticism industry.
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag's original name was "Susan Rosenblatt", her biological father was Jewish, "Rosenblatt" is a typical Jewish surname, and this surname once caused a lot of trouble for Susan and her sister. When she was 5 years old, her father died of tuberculosis, and her mother remarried Air Force Captain Nathan Sontag, so she took her stepfather's surname, and from then on, she was called Susan Sontag.
Susan Sontag did not have a good relationship with her mother throughout her life, and she hated everything her mother liked, and this lasted almost her whole life, until she reconciled with her mother in her later years.
Everything "feminine" was "basically" suppressed by my mother's poisoning. Even if she was willing... Whatever to do, I don't want to do. From men to perfumes, beautiful furniture, tasteful clothes, cosmetics... Flowers, colors, and sunshine holidays. Not to mention drinking, playing cards + watching TV. Thank God my mother doesn't like children, food, movies, books and learning!
Sontag had many same-sex couples throughout her life – including the Italian aristocratic Lady Carlotta and the photographer Anne Leibovitz, of which photographer Anne Leibovitz was the last partner in her life.
Sontag under the lens of Anne Leibowitz
Anne Leibovitz
Nevertheless, she was married for a decade— her husband was Philip Reeve, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, and Susan was a student at this time. Later, when Sontag recalled the marriage, she said she married Philip "with sufficient awareness + fear of self-destruction." During this marriage, she had a son, David, with her husband.
Susan Sontag and son David
Susan has worked very hard all her life, whether it is emotional entanglement or illness, it cannot stop her enthusiasm for work. In 1975, Sontag was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she actively studied the disease and cooperated with treatment. During her illness, she completed a series of papers on photography, which was published as On Photography, which is still regarded as a classic today.
"On Photography"
She loves, heals, and works. Illness only temporarily interrupted her writing process, and she had the strength to write to death as long as she did not die.
In 1987, more than a month after Sontag lost her mother, her early friend and former lover Paul Turk wrote her a letter telling her she had been diagnosed with AIDS. The blows of life weighed heavily on her, but it did not discourage her, not only writing AIDS and Its Metaphors, but also being more active in the public sphere.
Susan Sontag did not consider war to be a man's game, she actively followed and participated in world events, and during the 1968 U.S. War on Vietnam, Sontag was invited to visit Vietnam as an American anti-war activist. During this time, she wrote the Chronicle of Hanoi, which recorded the feelings and reflections of her trip to Vietnam. In 1992, during the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Sontag and his son David traveled to Sarajevo to direct the play Waiting for Godot, and visited Sarajevo several times in the following two years, where he was awarded the "Honorary Citizen of Sarajevo".
Sontag in Sarajevo
In Sarajevo in 1993, the candlelight row photography of Waiting for Godot
In 2004, at the age of 71, Sontag died of leukemia. She did not leave a will, but said she could not accept cremation and said she would play a quartet by Beethoven at the memorial service. In the end, her son David buried her in the Paris Cemetery, living next to because of de Beauvoir, Sartre and other literary and philosophical figures.
Portrait of Anne Leibovitz for Sontag in her last moments of life
The power that Susan Sontag leaves for every woman is:
Susan Sontag never set limits on herself, she has dabbled in a wide range of fields, leaving her mark on literature, art, film, and theater. Brodsky, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize, once said of her, "She is the wisest person on both sides of the Atlantic, and the end of other people's arguments is precisely her beginning." "She worked hard all her life, was actively involved in social movements, traveled, fell in love, wrote, and fought disease. She loves life, loves to explore herself and explore the world, and her colorful life has also expanded the depth and thickness of her life, setting a model for women to explore the value of their lives.
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