Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or traveling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about literature, photography and media, culture, AIDS and illness, war, human rights , and left-wing politics. Her essays and speeches drew backlash and controversy, [ 2 ] and she has been called "one of the most influential critics of her generation".
Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in , when Susan was five years old. Susan and her sister, Judith, took their stepfather's surname, although he did not adopt them formally. Remembering an unhappy childhood, with a cold, alcoholic, distant mother who was "always away", Sontag lived on Long Island , New York, [ 1 ] then in Tucson, Arizona , and later in the San Fernando Valley in southern California , where she took refuge in books and graduated from North Hollywood High School at the age of She began her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley but transferred to the University of Chicago in admiration of its prominent core curriculum.
At Chicago, she undertook studies in philosophy , ancient history, and literature alongside her other requirements. She graduated at age 18 with an A. At 17, Sontag married writer Philip Rieff , a sociology instructor at the University of Chicago, after a day courtship; their marriage lasted eight years.
After completing her Master of Arts in philosophy, Sontag began doctoral research in metaphysics, ethics, Greek philosophy, Continental philosophy, and theology at Harvard. According to Sontag's biographer Benjamin Moser , Sontag was the true author of the text on Freud, which she wrote after David's birth, and in the separation the latter was the subject of an exchange: she handed over the authorship of the book to Rieff, he gave her their son.
Sontag was awarded an American Association of University Women 's fellowship for the β58 academic year to St Anne's College, Oxford , where she traveled without her husband and son.
