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Benjamin Moser

Author Website

  • Bio
  • Books & Translations
    • Sontag: Her Life and Work
    • Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
    • The Works of Clarice Lispector in English Translation
      • Near to the Wild Heart
      • The Chandelier
      • The Besieged City
      • The Passion According to G.H.
      • Agua Viva
      • The Hour of the Star
      • A Breath of Life
      • Complete Stories
  • Selected Writings
  • Substack
  • News
  • Appearances
  • Nederlands
  • Português
    • Sontag: Vida e obra
    • Clarice, uma biografia
    • Autoimperialismo: três ensaios sobre o Brasil
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Sontag: Her Life and Work

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

The definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face.

Sontag Her Life and Work Benjamin Moser

 

“graceful, tactful, scrupulous, unerringly insightful”

–ArtForum

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-11T20:37:13+02:00

–ArtForum

“graceful, tactful, scrupulous, unerringly insightful”
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/artforum/
“Fascinating”

—The Los Angeles Times

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-11T20:37:30+02:00

—The Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating”
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/the-los-angeles-times/
“Persuasive and illuminating”

–LA Review of Books

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-11T20:37:47+02:00

–LA Review of Books

“Persuasive and illuminating”
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/la-review-of-books/
“Monumental and stylish.”

—The Atlantic

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-11T20:38:03+02:00

—The Atlantic

“Monumental and stylish.”
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/the-atlantic/
"Utterly riveting"

–The New Republic

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-11T20:47:42+02:00

–The New Republic

"Utterly riveting"
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/the-new-republic/
"Definitive and delightful"

–Stephen Fry

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-12T17:44:25+02:00

–Stephen Fry

"Definitive and delightful"
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/stephen-fry/
"Brilliant, bold, punchy and insightful"

–Guardian

Benjamin Moser
2020-05-12T17:50:40+02:00

–Guardian

"Brilliant, bold, punchy and insightful"
https://www.benmoser.com/testimonials/guardian/
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Benjamin Moser

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PRAISE


Finalist for Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award For Biography
Longlisted for the Plutarch Award for Biography
One of O Magazine’s Best Books of the Year
One of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Best Books of the Year
Seattle Times 4 Most Interesting Biographies of the Year
An Amazon Editors’ Holiday 2019 Gift Pick
One of New York Magazine’s The Best and Biggest Books to Read This Fall
One of O magazine’s 18 Must-Read Books of Fall
One of USA Today’s Five Books Not to Miss
One of Entertainment Weekly’s 20 New Books to Read in September
One of the New York Times’ 17 New Books to Watch For in September
One of the Washington Post’s Ten Books to Read this September
An Amazon Best of the Month, Biography & Memoir
One of O Magazine’s Best LGBTQ Books of the Year
One of the BBC’s Ten Books to Read this Summer
IndieBound Bestseller #29, 48

 

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“Benjamin Moser’s accomplishment here is breathtaking: it includes an extraordinary knowledge of the subject, her milieu, her writings, her ideas, and her friends and family, beautiful prose, extraordinary insights, a capacity to understand her driven emotional life and her stellar intellectual life.”
—Rebecca Solnit

“Benjamin Moser’s monumental biography reveals the surprisingly tender, insecure, simple and intellectually dedicated story of one the most remarkable literary figures to emerge in twentieth century America. Her influence on aesthetics, writing and the wider culture is almost impossible to overstate and Moser’s own fierce intelligence weaves between the life and the work quite magnificently. Definitive and delightful.”
—Stephen Fry

“In this long-awaited, brilliant biography, Benjamin Moser show us how to read Sontag – and, by extension, her times – in the present, and reveals the extents and limits of her genius. His psychologically nuanced critical study is written with sang-froid and compassion.”
—Chris Kraus

“For both Sontag scholars and those new to her, Moser has written an illuminating and important volume.”
—Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“Don’t be fooled by the length. This book, at more than 800 pages, is compulsive reading: moving, maddening, ridiculous and beautiful scenes from the life of Susan Sontag, and the epochs she traversed. Moser has a true and deep love for his subject, a love unafraid to be truthful, and it shows.”
—Rachel Kushner

“An astonishing page-turner, like a brilliant suspense novel (even for one who knew what happened next!). The Sue/Susan/Sontag/“Susan Sontag” character emerges here in all her wonderfulness and terribleness and staggering complexity. This is it: the last word on Susan Sontag.”
—Sigrid Nunez

“If it’s already difficult to imagine American culture without Susan Sontag’s contributions to it, it may soon become difficult to imagine her life without Benjamin Moser’s account of it. A significant life like Sontag’s demands a significant biography. That demand has now been incisively, extravagantly met.”
—Michael Cunningham

“Gripping, insightful and supremely stylish biography. He makes a modern epic out of Sontag’s remarkable story.”
—Edmund Gordon

The 2020 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Biography

Sontag: Her Life and Work wins the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Biography An authoritatively constructed work told with pathos and grace, that captures the writer’s genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities and volatile enthusiasms…learn more

Houston Chronicle interview with Benjamin Moser

Houston-born author Benjamin Moser dives deep into the life of ‘the coolest woman you ever met’ Benjamin Moser grew up around books. Admittedly, plenty of kids with bookish parents ensure their children are surrounded by shelves and piles of books. But Moser’s mother ran Stop, Look & Learn, a book and toy shop in Rice…

Interview with Benjamin Moser on KHOU-11

Benjamin Moser discusses his new book about writer and activist Susan Sontag. Watch on KHOU.com

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