Susan Sontag: 1933-2004

Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933. But she grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and Los Angeles California, and entered the University of California at Berkeley at the age of fifteen.

At the age of seventeen she got married, but divorced in the late 1950s. With her son she moved to Boston and continued her studies at Harvard and later at the University of Paris.

From 1960 to 1964 she was an instructor in the religion department of Columbia University, and then a writer-in-residence for one year at Rutgers.

As a novelist Sontag started her career at the age of 30 with "The Benefactor".

In the bohemian New York scene of the early sixties, Sontag swiftly acquired a reputation as the radical-liberal American woman.

In 1992 Sontag published her third novel, "The Volcano Lover", which became a bestseller. In addition to essays and novels, Sontag wrote screenplays for experimental films and directed for the theatre.

Sontag died of complications of leukemia in Manhattan on December 28, 2004.