American author, teacher, essayist, publicist and activist, known for her commitment to human rights and criticism of the Government of the United States, and a great friend of B&H and Sarajevo, Susan Sontag, died on this day, the 28th of December 2004.
Susan Sontag deserved exceptional place in the social, cultural and artistic criticism by her work in which she issued the ‘elite’ culture and analyzed the relationship of moral and esthetic ideas. Literary work of Susan Sontag includes four novels, several plays and nine critical essays. She wrote and directed four films, and her most recent novel is dedicated to her friends in Sarajevo.
She left great importance when she directed Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”, with representatives of the warring parties as actors in Sarajevo in 1993, in the middle of the siege.
She was the first who said that genocide is happening in our country, and we remember her by her sentence: “Those who remain neutral in this war are sh**.”
As a human rights activist, for over two decades, Sontag served as president of American PEN, the international organization dedicated to the freedom of expression and improving of literature, in which she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
She was declared as honorary citizen of Sarajevo posthumously and the square in front of the National Theatre was named after her.
(Source: Radiosarajevo.ba)
