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Paper Trails: She Lived with Sontag, and Lived to Write About It

Marion Ettlinger

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/intern/Paper%20Trails%20S2%20Ep2%20web.mp3

As a young woman making her way in literary New York, Sigrid Nunez — now the acclaimed author of novels like The Last of Her Kind — took a job as an assistant and Girl Friday to the famous intellectual Susan Sontag. Soon, Nunez was the lover of Sontag's son, David Rieff. And soon, the three of them were living together.

On the latest episode of Paper Trails, the public radio show about books, Sigrid Nunez discusses Sempre Susan, her chatty but never catty memoir of the year she spent in the House of Susan. Host Mark Oppenheimer and fellow panelist Binnie Klein talk New York in the 1970s, the place of the public intellectual in society, what we owe to the dead, and, above all, the legacy of Susan Sontag.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

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