Sontag

On the evening of June 26, Granta Books celebrated the publication of two new books: Fishing in Utopia by Andrew Brown and Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff. Sigrid Rausing, the publisher of Granta magazine, spoke on what these books mean to her.You may well wonder what David Rieff’s book about the death of his mother, Susan Sontag, and Andrew Brown’s book about Sweden have in common,

It was impossible even to tell her...that I loved her because to have done so would have been to say: 'You're dying.' The Guardian has printed an extended excerpt from David Rieff's memoir,

While a painting, even one that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the stating of an interpretation, a photograph is never less than the registering of an emanation (light waves reflected by objects)– a material vestigate of its subject in a way that no painting can be… Having a photograph of Shakespeare would be like having a nail from the True Cross. -Susan Sontag

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.” - Susan Sontag Tags: famous quotes, susan sontag

“The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or duplication.” Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004) U.S. novelist and essayist

“A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.”Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004) U.S. novelist and essayist

La fotografía: breve sumaPor Susan SontagTraducción de Aurelio Major1. La fotografía es, antes que nada, una manera de mirar. No es la mirada misma.2. Es la manera ineludiblemente "moderna" de mirar: predispuesta en favor de los proyectos de descubrimiento e innovación.3. Esta manera de mirar, que tiene ya una dilatada historia, conforma lo que buscamos y estamos habituados a notar en las fotografías.4. La manera de mirar moderna es ver fragmentos. Se tiene la impresión de que la realidad es en esencia ilimitada y el conocimiento no tiene fin. De ello se sigue que todos los límites, todas las ideas unificadoras han de ser engañosas, demagógicas; en el mejor de los casos, provisionales; casi siempre, y a la larga, falsas. Mirar la realidad a la luz de determinadas ideas unificadoras tiene la ventaja innegable de dar contorno y forma a nuestras vivencias. Pero también -así nos instruye la manera de mirar moderna- niega la diversidad y la complejidad infinitas de lo real. Por l