Main content

Afterwords: Susan Sontag

A fragmentary look at the American writer Susan Sontag through her own words and those of her peers.

In 'Afterwords' we explore the ideas of great writers in their own words - as archive recordings in which they articulate their approach is interwoven with the thoughts of contemporary writers, academics and activists.

Through the 1960s and '70s up to her death in 2004, Susan Sontag was the embodiment of the fashionable, metropolitan, 'public intellectual'. Her writings on 'camp', on photography, on illness (she endured cancer at a time when the 'C word' was almost taboo) and the suffering of others, together with her activism and her art, came to be shared with millions through the medium for which she had very little time as a viewer - television. And her radio interviews on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and elsewhere cemented her reputation.

With contributions from her West Coast friend and scholar Terry Castle, the war correspondent Allan Little who got to know her well during the Siege of Sarajevo, the writer and broadcaster Lisa Appignanesi who achieved a rare intimacy in one interview for Radio 3's Night Waves, Andrew Bolton (curator of the exhibition called 'Camp: Notes on Fashion' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), the journalist, critic and Sontag 'fan-boy' Boyd Tonkin and the writer Elif Shafak who continues to work in Sontag's long shadow, we take a close listen to the American writer and examine her legacy.

(Including archive from Studs Terkel Radio Archive, courtesy Chicago History Museum and WFMT Radio Network.)

Produced Alia Cassam and Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 3

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Wed 9 Sep 2020 22:00

Broadcasts

  • Sun 20 Jan 2019 18:45
  • Wed 9 Sep 2020 22:00

Featured in...

What was really wrong with Beethoven?

What was really wrong with Beethoven?

Georgia Mann and neurosurgeon Henry Marsh explore the puzzle of Beethoven’s poor health.

Classical music in a strongman's Russia – has anything changed since Stalin's day?

What composer Gabriel Prokofiev and I found in Putin's Moscow...

Six Secret Smuggled Books

Six classic works of literature we wouldn't have read if they hadn't been smuggled...

Grid

Seven images inspired by the grid

World Music collector, Sir David Attenborough

The field recordings Attenborough of music performances around the world.