Programme Details

Susan Sontag was one of America's most articulate - and often most controversial - writers and intellectuals. In her lifetime, the novelist and essayist earned a reputation as one of America's leading intellectuals, fearlessly challenging ideas and attitudes. In Night Waves, Philip Dodd assesses her role, output and legacy with writer and academic Elaine Showalter.

Sontag's fiercely articulate writing addressed many cultural issues of our age - the power of imagery, illness, terrorism, America, human rights, and pornography. Her rigour and outspoken frankness provoked wholehearted approval and admiration in some quarters, and condemnation in others.

After penning short a piece in response to the destruction of 9-11, Sontag became something of a hate figure for conservative America, who accused her of praising the murderers who attacked her country.

In an interview recorded for Night Waves in 2002, Susan Sontag talks about her passionate and prolific output, the potentially fatal nature of her breast cancer, which was diagnosed in 1976, and the response to her 9/11 article.

Night Waves, at 9.45pm here on BBC Radio 3



Presenter: Philip Dodd
Producer: Jerome Weatherald