# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/susan-sontag
# Generated: 2026-08-31T15:49:34.777Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/susan-sontag"
name: "Susan Sontag"
slug: "susan-sontag"
description: "She turned cultural criticism into an intellectual sport—sharp, unsparing essays that made people rethink what art meant and how suffering gets packaged for public consumption. Sontag wrote like someone who'd read everything and refused to pretend comfort where none existed."
tagline: "American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist (1933–2004)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Susan_Sontag_1979_%C2%A9Lynn_Gilbert_(headshot).jpg?width=1200"
gender: "female"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Writers"
  slug: "writers"
profileType:
  name: "Writer / Author"
  slug: "writer"
birthDate: "1933-01-16"
deathDate: "2004-12-28"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           68
  momentum:             10
  historical:           25.51216
  currentAttention:     30.76923076923077
  sourceConfidence:     70
  profileCompleteness:  80
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "writers"
  - name: "Writer / Author"
    slug: "writer-author"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "Television"
    slug: "television"
  - name: "Screenwriting"
    slug: "screenwriting"
  - name: "Fiction"
    slug: "fiction"
  - name: "Philosophy"
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  - name: "Journalism"
    slug: "journalism"
platforms:
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    handle:    "nm0814506"
  - platform:  "WEBSITE"
    url:       "http://www.susansontag.com"
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    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Susan%20Sontag"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
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    title: "سوزان سونتاج"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "سوزان سانتاق"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "সুসান সোনটাগ"
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    title: "Susan Sontag"
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    title: "Сьюзан Зонтаг"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A3%CE%BF%CF%8D%CE%B6%CE%B1%CE%BD_%CE%A3%CF%8C%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%BA"
    title: "Σούζαν Σόνταγκ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "سوزان سانتاگ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Susan Sontag"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://az.wikiquote.org/wiki/Syuzan_Zontaq"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://bg.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%8E%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%97%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B3"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://ca.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://cs.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontagov%C3%A1"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/93161950-5f98-4a51-88d5-9d314b5844a9"
    title: "MusicBrainz"
    type:  "DATABASE"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Susan Lee Sontag published her first major work, "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964, and it announced a voice that wouldn't soften. Against Interpretation followed in 1966, then On Photography in 1977—books that dismantled how people looked at images and meaning. She wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978, stripping away the narrative decorations around disease. She traveled to conflict zones during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo, turning observation into argument. Her essays and speeches on literature, cinema, war, and left-wing politics drew backlash, but she kept the line taut. She published novels later—The Volcano Lover in 1992, In America in 1999—and the short story "The Way We Live Now" in 1986, then closed with Regarding the Pain of Others in 2003. She died December 28, 2004, called one of the most influential critics of her generation.