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Written by Jill Moss
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VOICE ONE:
I‘m Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about a writer who helped influence modern culture. Her name was Susan Sontag.
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VOICE ONE:
Susan Sontag was considered one of the most influential liberal thinkers in the United States during the twentieth century. She wrote seventeen books. They have been translated into thirty languages. They include novels, short stories, essays and film scripts. She was also a filmmaker, playwright and theater director. And she was a human rights and anti-war activist. She was said to own fifteen thousand books in her personal library in her home.
She was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York City in nineteen thirty-three. Her father, Jack Rosenblatt, was a trader in China. Susan’s mother spent most of her time in China with her husband. Family members raised Susan and her younger sister, Judith, when they were very young.
When Susan was five, her father died of tuberculosis. Her mother returned from China and moved the girls to Tucson, Arizona. There, Missus Rosenblatt met Nathan Sontag. The couple married and the family moved to Los Angeles, California.
VOICE TWO:
Susan Sontag was an extremely intelligent child. She could read by age three. She finished high school at the age of fifteen. Two years later, Susan completed her college education at the University of Chicago in Illinois. While at the university, she attended a class taught by Philip Rieff.
He was a twenty-eight year old expert on human society and social relationships. The two were married in nineteen fifty, ten days after they first met. Susan was seventeen years old. The couple moved to Boston, Massachusetts. In nineteen fifty-two, they had a son, David. He grew up to become a writer and the editor of his mother’s works.
VOICE ONE:
Susan Sontag completed two master’s degrees from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first was in English; the second was in philosophy. She also began a doctorate program in religion at Oxford University in England. However, she never completed that program.
Susan and Philip ended their marriage in nineteen fifty-eight. Several months later, Susan moved with her son to New York City. She held several jobs teaching at universities and writing.
VOICE TWO:
Susan Sontag began her professional life writing creative literature. She published her first book in nineteen sixty-three. It was an experimental novel called “The Benefactor.” It examined dreams and how people think. Four years later, she published her second novel, called “Death Kit.” The story included sharp criticism of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Sontag wrote several books of creative literature. Yet, she became famous for her critical essays that examined different kinds of social and artistic issues. She wrote serious studies about popular art forms. She wrote essays about books, movies and photography. She also wrote essays about sickness.
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen sixty-four, she wrote an essay called “Notes on Camp.” It was an immediate success that made her famous. Camp is a form of art or popular culture that is humorous because it is purposely bad, false or common. In the essay, Sontag argued that a piece of art may be bad yet considered good if it creates emotional feelings in the person looking at it. The essay also included the idea about popular culture that something can be “so bad it is good.” “Notes on Camp” is still widely read today.
