How to Get Into Susan Sontag: An Introductory Guide

As her work is celebrated by two German institutions, we offer a five-point guide to the life and work of Susan Sontag, from her pioneering writing on photography, culture and cancer.

March 25, 2025, Text by Emily Steer

“Born in New York in 1933, Sontag spent her professional life writing essays, novels, and short stories. She was also a political activist, publicly protesting the Vietnam War and basing her formidable cultural critiques on real-life visits to war zones, from Hanoi to Sarajevo. It has been over two decades since her death, but her writing is timelier than ever. Her ideas anticipated the flood of images that now proliferate the digital world, to which we have become ever more numb. 

This spring, Sontag is being celebrated by two German institutions, with Susan Sontag: Seeing and Being Seen running at Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn until 28 September, and Susan Sontag: Everything Matters opening at Literaturhaus München on May 23. “