Susan Sontag's Complete Works Published by Christian Bourgois

Christian Bourgois éditeur has published the complete works of Susan Sontag, including a collection of early critical essays titled "L'Œuvre parle" and her personal journal from 1947-1963, "Renaître." The publication frames Sontag's oeuvre as a continuous self-portrait, akin to a Bildungsroman. The essay collection features writings from the early 1960s on aesthetic questions, writers like Artaud, Genet, and Burroughs, and filmmakers such as Bresson, Resnais, and Godard. It also includes her seminal essay "Notes on 'Camp'." The journal traces her intellectual and sentimental education from adolescence to her first major texts, documenting her escape from provincial America, marriage, motherhood, and discovery of new sexuality and freedom. Sontag is characterized primarily as an essayist, with her major works including "Illness as Metaphor," "On Photography," and "Regarding the Pain of Others." The publication coincides with a retrospective view that gives her diverse writings the coherence of a single narrative.