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1st Printing. Signed. 246 pages. Published in 1978. The author's first and only collection of short stories. One of Susan Sontag's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Susan Sontag's "I, etcetera". Short stories as essays; essays as short stories. Includes such autobiographical pieces as "Unguided Tour", which she later made into a film for Italian television, and "Debriefing", her poignant piece on suicide. As a short-story writer, Sontag is a committed Chekhovian: She believes that the form is not about character "development" (as the novel is), but about "stable" characters confronting unstable situations, life-altering as well as minute, nuanced changes of time, place, and sensation. Her stories are extensions of her essays - the best of which resemble stories - in the sense that she is able to express otherwise inexpressible feelings, not just thoughts or ideas, in a more fluid and "subjective" way than she could in her more "objective" essays, about the fragmentation of identity (the "I" of the title), among other concerns. Autobiography is always mediated in Sontag's writing (that is why, for example, she never actually wrote her memoirs, as so many other major writers have), mediated, that is, by her pained and acute consciousness. As such, there is nothing like these stories in American literature: "Debriefing", "Unguided Tour", and "Project For A Trip To China" are masterpieces. An absolute "must-have" title for Susan Sontag collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the half-title page by Susan Sontag. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. It comes with a lovely Souvenir Material of the event during which her signature was obtained. This title is a great collection. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for "On Photography", the National Book Award in 2000 for "In America", and the Jerusalem Prize in 2001. Shimon Peres, in awarding the Jerusalem Prize, described Sontag as "one of the world's finest writers and greatest minds". One of the most influential and important writer-intellectuals of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER SUSAN SONTAG TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0374174024.
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