Susan Sontag - Infinite Women

Born: 16 January 1933, United States
Died: 28 December 2004
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.

Susan Sontag was a significant contributor to the seminal psychology biography Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, published in 1959. Considered one of sociologist Philip Rieff’s most influential works, it established his reputation. Yet although Rieff acknowledges his wife’s contributions with “special thanks” in the preface, that’s a far cry from the co-author credit she clearly deserved. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Sontag: Her Life and Work, Benjamin Moser goes one step further, attributing the entire work to her. Indeed, their 1959 divorce settlement—the same year the book was published—stipulated she agree to Rieff’s claim of sole authorship. Per Moser’s research, “It was a blood sacrifice,” as one friend put it, in exchange for Rieff not trying to take their son David from Sontag. While Moser acknowledges that the book would have been based on Rieff’s research, he maintains the writing was all Sontag’s, saying, “He almost certainly did not actually write the book upon which his career was based.” It’s worth noting that Sontag and Rieff married when she was just 17, only 10 days after she attended one of his lectures—he was more than 10 years her senior, at 28.