Susan Sontag Dies at 71

Posted on December 29, 2004

Novelist, essayist and human rights activist Susan Sontag died yesterday in a New York hospital at the age of 71. She had been battling cancer for some time. David Rieff, her son, said that his mother dies of complications of acute myelogenous leukemia, one of the deadliest forms of leukemia. The author of 17 books, Sontag won the National Book Award for In America, a novel about a 19th-century Polish actress, Helena Modjeska. Always controversial, Sontag infuriated conservatives with her views on everything from Viet Nam to the September 11th attacks. A lifelong reader and intellectual, Sontag once said that a writer should be "someone who is interested in everything." Sontag's friend, author Salman Rushdie, described her as "a great literary artist, a fearless and original thinker, ever valiant for truth," who insisted "with literary talent came an obligation to speak out on the great issues of the day."