Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
" ... yani doktora gitsem elime ne geçecek; gerçekten hastaysam yakında anlaşılır.."
"Herkes, herkes için endişeleniyor artık, dedi Betsy, böyle yaşıyoruz sanırım, böyle yaşıyoruz artık."
" Quentin'e göre, ölmese bile, hastalıktan sağ kurtulan ilk kuşaktan biri olacak kadar talihli olsa bile, her şeyin geride kaldığını şimdiye dek sürdürdüğü yaşantının sona erdiğini hiç söylememişti.... ama buna kafa yoruyordu aslında, hovardalığın, eğlencenin, yaşama güven duymanın, yaşamı var saymanın ve yaşamı, bir samuray edasıyla, düşünmeksizin, küstahça fırlatıp atabileceği bir şey olarak görmenin sonunun geldiğini düşünüyordu..."
"...korku içimi deşiyor, parçalıyor beni... beni sıkıştırıyor. Her şeye rengini, kokusunu, veren şey korku. "
Sanırım AIDS üzerine yazılmış ilk metinlerden birisi. Bir arkadaşın yavaş yavaş ölümüne şahit olurken sıradakinin kim olacağı korkusuyla, doğru düzgün tanınmayan bir hastalıkla başa çıkmaya çalışan bir grup insanın anlatısı. Çok kısa olmasına karşın, bir solukta oturulup yazılmış bir iç döküş gibi. Takip edemediğiniz, zaman zaman anlatıcıyı ayırt edemediğiniz kaotik bir hastalık öyküsü. Bir oturuşta bitecek bir kitap arıyorsanız bu kitap o değil. Sakin bir gününüzü ayırdığınızda güzelleşenlerden.
Die letzten beiden Kurzgeschichten sowie das Nachwort haben dann doch noch für 4 Sterne gesorgt, weil sie einen tieferen Einblick in Sontags Sicht auf Kunst und Welt sowie ihre eigene Biographie gewähren. Vor dem Hintergrund wusste ich dann auch die experimentelleren ersten Kurzgeschichten noch zu schätzen.
Ich durfte Susan Sontag mit diesem Band kennenlernen und kann das nur weiterempfehlen! Diese fünf Erzählungen zu lesen ist herausfordernd und im besten Sinne intellektuell anregend. Die Themen erscheinen zeitlos bzw. überraschend aktuell. In dem Band „Wie wir jetzt leben“ werden die Kurzgeschichten ergänzt durch ein erhellendes Nachwort von Verena Lueken.
Susan Sontag, die große Intellektuelle, tritt in ihren Essays mit dem „Sprachgestus der Bestimmtheit“ auf (Lueken, S. 124). In diesen Erzählungen ist sie die Fragende, Suchende, Zweifelnde. Das wird auch in dem Stil und der Form der Kurzgeschichten deutlich, die teilweise experimentell daherkommen und sich radikal unterscheiden. Diese Zerrissenheit fasziniert mich, ebenso wie Susan Sontags große Leidenschaft für die Künste: „Lesen und Musik hören: der Triumph, nicht ich zu sein.“ (S. 91)
Sontag, bir dostunun AIDS’e yakalandığını öğrendiği gün bir oturuşta kaleme almış bu kısa öyküyü. 1986 yılında yayımlanmış. Kitabın içinde yazarın “Aids ve Metaforları” kitabından da bir bölüm bulunuyor.
“Herkes herkes için endişeleniyor artık, böyle yaşıyoruz sanırım, böyle yaşıyoruz artık…” Sf 15
Brings me on the edge of tears. Actually it was an emotional torment because it reminded me of my dad's last days so often. (Inspired this impulse in me to shout out to void that I am lucky to be his daughter and he is the treasure of my life.) Sorry, rather than a comment on the book, this is a note on my reading experience.
The Way We Live Now, published in the New Yorker 1986, is not just a short story, its a piece of history. Sontag tells the tale of a dying man and his grieving, worrying, gossiping friends. He has Aids and his decline is used to demonstrate the shock of the disease's spread through society, particularly those sheltered, wealthy parts of society that no doubt believed themselves sickness free, safe from deadly epidemics.
While Sontag's style in this story doesn't appeal to me (long, run-on sentences used to create a feeling of endless gossip, of everyone talking about talking, he said about him about her that she did what he said and they did...) it has the desired effect of building up a society around the sick man. Everyone is connected and everyone is threatened. No one quite understands the threat or who will be next, but they understand that their lifestyle could be one of the reasons why they feel no longer safe. They realise that they must begin to question their sense of freedom, particularly sexual freedom. There is a fear of others, a sense of rolling blame that dominoes through the friendship groups. It is a horrible, paranoiac circus that they find themselves in and no one quite knows how to cope with it.
As a piece of history, The Way We Live Now is photographically prophetic; it captures a moment in the modern development of Aids and looks at its effects and its consequences for the future. 6
Fünf ganz unterschiedliche Texte, was Inhalte, Länge, Stil angeht. Jeder ein Leseerlebnis! "Wie wir jetzt leben" – Wie umgehen mit der Krankheit, die in New York jeder zu haben scheint, den man kennt? Was soll man sagen, wenn man am Bett der Kranken sitzt? Muß man Angst haben, wird es eine Zukunft geben? "Beschreibung (einer Beschreibung)" – Interessante Schreibtechnik, die eine Beschreibung um eine Beschreibung erweitert und so einen Reflexionsraum eröffnet. "Die Briefszene" – Puschkin und Tschaikowsky, Tatjana und ihr Eugen, Schreiben und Lesen, Schreiben und Sprechen, Schweigen. Großartig! "Der Blick aus der Arche" – Dieser Text gefiel mir am wenigsten. Noahs Nachkommen sitzen in der Arche, während draußen die Menschen die Welt zugrundegerichtet haben? Not my cup of tea. "Wallfahrt" – Die vierzehnjährige Susan und ein Mitschüler besuchen Thomas Mann in seinem kalifornischen Exil, nach vierzig Jahren aufgeschrieben. Die Sontag war offenbar kein sympathisches Kind und – wenn man so will – mit einer Inselintellektualität begabt und von absurden Vorstellungen beherrscht. Erst ganz am Schluß stellt ihr älteres Ich deren Berechtigung vorsichtig in Frage. Sehr befremdlich. Freilich glänzend beobachtet und erzählt.
Verena Lueken hält im Nachwort fest, dass Sontags "Stimme in diesen Geschichten […] unbestimmt [bleibt], sie zögert, so scheint es, während sie in ihren Essays fast majestätisch auftritt." (S. 120) Sontag klinge dabei "in jeder Geschichte ein bisschen anders, als probiere sie unterschiedliche Stile und Sprechweisen aus" (S. 120f.) – und das fasst sehr gut in Worte, weswegen ich mit dem Erzählband nicht allzu viel anfangen konnte. Nicht, dass er mich nicht gut unterhalten hätte: Ich bin immer dankbar, wenn Autor*innen mich für ein paar Stunden fesseln können, und Sontags Kurzgeschichten entwickeln durchaus einen gewissen Sog. Aber dabei bleiben sie oftmals so offen, dass sie schwer greifbar sind, und gleichzeitig sehr oberflächlich-offensichtlich. Dennoch fand ich insbesondere ihre Begegnung mit Thomas Mann gerade in ihrer Banalität sehr lesenswert, Luekens Nachwort gelungen und die Sammlung im Großen und Ganzen sehr kurzweilig. Und noch als Disclaimer: Die Kurzgeschichten sind das Erste, was ich von Sontag gelesen habe (eine sehr unorthodoxe Herangehensweise, ich weiß) – wie auch immer das meine Beurteilung hier beeinflusst haben mag.
Stylistically, I can appreciate how the run-on sentences mimic the panic in the patient and the nature of conversational gossip. As a reader, however, it is tiresome and incomprehensible to read. It's just noise.
I find stream-of-consciousness writing can be effective in small doses, but even just thirty pages is too much for me. I feel that film or TV or a live performance is a better medium for this style.
This was absolutely brilliant. The book made me think of lower Manhattan during that time, and then made me think of lower Manhattan in general, and all of its ghosts. The voices and conversations were real, disembodied and current. Nothing ever seems ghostly while it is happening.
Über das Blättern in ihren Tagebüchern bin ich auf diesen Erzählband gestossen, dies in weitgehender Unkenntnis ihrer Essays, notabene und vermutlich leider. Ich lese einfach lieber Narratives als Analytisches und diese Erzählungen habe ich sehr gerne gelesen, vor allem die Titelgeschichte, die eine mir bisher unbekannte Form nutzt: Freundinnen und Freunde reden über einen, der krank geworden ist und als einziger namenlos bleibt. Die Geschichte beginnt so: "Erst hat er nur abgenommen, sich nur etwas angeschlagen gefühlt, sagte Max zu Ellen, und Greg zufolge war er nicht zum Arzt gegangen, weil er es schaffte, mehr oder weniger im gleichen Rhythmus weiterzuarbeiten, allerdings hörte er, wie Tanya anmerkte, mit dem Rauchen auf …" Diese Erzählweise erzeugt einen ungewohnten Sog und hat mir über das Kranksein mehr gezeigt als viele Sachtexte. – Schön auch "Wallfahrt", die Geschichte von Sontags Begegnung mit Thomas Mann, und "Beschreibung (einer Beschreibung)", ebenfalls ein formales Experiment. – Vier und nicht fünf Sterne, weil mir "Der Blick aus der Arche" weniger gefallen hat als der Rest.
Masterfully written short story, must read more Sontag! Realistic portrayal of friendships and found family in the face of crisis. Hope when I die everyone rallies around me and gossips like this.
Sontag is at her best in this startling work that moves swiftly whilst she nor does her brisk narrative await the reader to catch up... one needs to read as carefully as possible for the hints that Sontag drops but they are so overt that one might simply overlook them and praise this work for its excellent style and language...!
Sontan'ın, en iyi işim, dediği kitap konuşmalarla anlatılan bir öykü, bir oda dolusu kadın ve erkek aids olan arkadaşlarının hastalıktan haberdar olduğu, hastanede kaldığı ve öldüğü süreyi bize aralarındaki diyaloglarla anlatıyor. Çok kısa çok etkileyici bir öykü,
🇺🇲 This short story was written by Susan Sontag when she figured out the sickness of one of her close friends. Although the story is only 30 pages, it has a unique style of writing.
Although it implies AIDS of a young man, we witness the thoughts of his circle of friends. The book criticized the stigma around HIV and being HIV positive in the 90s.
I liked the writing so much, and I am going to read other books of this author.
🇹🇷Bu 50 sayfalık hikaye yazarın en yakın arkadaşlarından birinin AIDS olması ile yazılmış. Çok kısa bir hikaye olmasına rağmen yazım tarzı ile beni çok etkiledi.
Kitapta açık açık söylenmese de AIDS plan bor gencin yakın arkadaş grubunun düşünceleri üzerinden bu hastalığa yapışanı önyargi ve hastanın mahremiyeti üzerine bir kritik görüyoruz.
Yazarın yazım tarzını çok beğendim diğer kitaplarında bakacağım.
Ohne je einen ihrer Essays gelesen zu haben (eine Schande, ich weiß), habe ich schon lange eine hohe Meinung von Susan Sontag, unter anderem wegen einer Freundin, die mir dann auch diesen Erzählband in die Hand drückte, damit ich endlich mal etwas von Sontag lese. Dieses Bild bleibt nach der Lektüre bestehen, mein Interesse an ihrem Werk ist sogar noch gewachsen, denn Sontags Erzählungen lassen erahnen wie brillant sie Reflektion und Kritik in essayistischer Form üben könnte. So handeln die meisten, wenn nicht alle Texte in einer Hinsicht von ihrer eigenen Erzählweise. Auf ein aus Fragmenten, darunter Briefauszüge, zusammengesetzte Geschichte über das Briefschreiben, folgt ein Gleichnis über die Erzählmacht von Bildern. Und nicht zu vergessen die titelgebende Erzählung, eine feinsinnige Studie über den Welleneffekt von Krankheit, welche sich um den Umgang eines Freund*innenkreises mit ihrem an Aids erkrankten Freund dreht und besagte Freund*innen durchweg in indirekter Rede zitiert. Aus verschiedenen Publikationen in diesem Band versammelt, variiert die Qualität der Texte etwas, aber insgesamt lohnt sich das Lesen sehr.
Kısacık bir öykü sonrasında,AIDS 'e dair bir yazı... Karakterimizin AIDS olmasıyla başlayıp sürecin sonuna kadar nerdeyse yakın çevresiyle birlikte ilerlerdiğimiz bir hikayeydi. Hastalığa bakışın değiştiği her ne kadar hikayede belirtilse de sondaki yazıda net katıldığım şey hala bu hastalığa yakalananların BELLI bir kitleye dahil edilmeleri ve hastalığı gizlemek zorunda kalmalarıdır.Ki bu gizleme nedeniyle daha fazla bulaşması da o denli artıyor.Hatta insanlar bu hastalıktan,aslında hastalıktan değil eğer kapmışlarsa yiyecekleri yafta nedeniyle test yaptırmaktan bile uzak duruyorlar. Kansere yakalananlara hastalıkları aileleri tarafından gizlenirken AIDS'e yakalananlar hastalıklarını ailelerinden gizlerler denilmişti.. Net bir tespitti... Kahramanımızın günce tutmasını gelecek zamanı ipotek altına alıyor olarak verilmesi de guzeldi evet günce tutuyoruz çünkü bir gün onları açıp okuyacağımızı düsünmek istiyoruz,bilebilir miyiz... Kader...
A perceptive short story that revolves around the conversations held between the friends of an HIV-positive patient.A tad confusing at first, but rewarding once you get the hang of it.