- Susan Sontag was an American writer and filmmaker born in 1933 in New York City who died in 2004. She wrote novels, essays, plays and monographs on a wide range of topics including human rights, society, love, and the role of photography. - Some of her most notable works include the novels The Benefactor and In America, the essay collections Against Interpretation and Where the Stress Falls, and the monographs On Photography and Illness as Metaphor. - Sontag's writing explored themes of human nature, morality, aesthetics and how culture interprets different topics like art, illness and war. She advocated for experiencing art directly rather than analyzing its meaning and was influential in