Susan Sontag (1933–2004) was the author of numerous works of nonfiction, including the groundbreaking collection of essays
Against Interpretation (FSG, 1966), and of four novels, including
In America (FSG, 2000), which won the National Book Award.
Susan Sontag was the author of four novels, including
The Benefactor,
Death Kit,
The Volcano Lover, and
In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for fiction; a collection of stories,
I, etcetera; several plays, including
Alice in Bed; and nine works of essays, among them
On Photography, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award for criticism. In 2001, Sontag was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work. She died in New York City in 2004.
David Rieff is a New York-based journalist and author. During the nineteen-nineties, he covered conflicts in Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Liberia), the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosovo), and Central Asia. Now a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, he has written extensively about Iraq, and, more recently, about Latin America. He is the author of eight books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. His memoir of his mother’s final illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death, appeared in January 2008. Based in New York City, Rieff is currently working on a book about the global food crisis.
