Reborn : Early Diaries 1947-1963

Author: Sontag, Susan, Rieff, David

c 1945 to c 1960

Published on 1 October 2009 by Penguin Books Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Paperback / softback | 336 pages
196 x 129 x 21 | 240g

‘In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself’Intimate, vulnerable and unsparing, Reborn bears witness to the evolution of Susan Sontag.

With entries dating from 1947-1963, the first instalment from Susan Sontag’s diaries charts her ascension from early adolescence to her early thirties. Unabashed, though thoroughly self-reflective, Sontag’s diaries reveal the inner workings of her mind, her insecurities and her passions. This compelling account of the evolution of America’s greatest post-war intellectual allows us to behold the moral and political awakening of the artist and critic.

‘An exceptionally vivid, and often moving, account of a young woman’s painful journey towards acceptance of her own nature’ Sunday Telegraph’Moving on several levels . . . thrilling . . . fascinating . . . often reads like a brilliant postmodern bildungsroman’ New York Magazine’One can feel Sontag’s mind beginning to ripen and bloom, and the full force of the intellectual originality that would be her hallmark emerging’ Guardian