蘇珊•桑塔格

1933年生於美國紐約，畢業於芝加哥大學。1993年當選為美國文學藝術學院院士。她是美國聲名卓著的“新知識分子”，與西濛娜•波伏瓦、漢娜•阿倫特並稱為西方當代最重要的女知識分子，被譽為“美國公眾的良心”。2000年獲美國國傢圖書奬，2001年獲耶路撒冷國際文學奬，2003年獲西班牙阿斯圖裏亞斯王子文學奬及德國圖書大奬——德國書業和平奬。2004年12月28日病逝於紐約。

Susan Sontag

Has written four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover and In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for fiction; a collection of stories, I, etcetera; Several plays, including Alice in Bed; and eight books of essays, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor & AIDS and Its Metaphors, Under the Sign of Saturn, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others and At the Same Time. Her books are translated into thirty-two languages. In 2001 she was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for her body of work, and in 2003 she received the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She died in December 2004.

‘The most original and important work yet written on the subject…All future discussion on the role of photography in the affluent mass-media societies is bound to refer to Susan Sontag’s On Photography as a key work’

John Berger, New Society

《論攝影》不僅是一本論述攝影的經典著作，而且是一本論述廣泛意義上的現代文化的經典著作。

桑塔格深入地探討攝影的本質，包括攝影是不是藝術，攝影與繪畫的互相影響，攝影與真實世界的關係，攝影的捕食性和侵略性。攝影錶麵上是反映現實，但實際上攝影影像自成一個世界，一個影像世界，企圖取代真實世界。由此，談論攝影亦成為討論世界的一種方式。

《論攝影》齣版於一九七七年，轟動一時，引起廣泛的討論，並榮獲當年的全國圖書批評界奬, 至今仍被譽為“攝影界的《聖經》”。