[Leica] for those Susan Sontag fans on the LUG.... ; }

["Birkey, Duane" <dbirkey@hcjb.org.ec>]

Susan Sontag Wins National Book Award for 'In America.' 
By Hillel Italie
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - With Steve Martin serving as master of ceremonies, the
National Book Awards felt just a little bit like the Academy Awards. They
felt even more so when Susan Sontag, usually the very image of the
serious-minded author, won the prize for fiction. 
''To say I'm astonished is an understatement," said the 67-year-old Sontag,
who didn't pretend not to enjoy the award, or to say she expected it. "I'm
really more moved than I could say." 
Oscar winners like to joke that they rarely win for their best work; many
would say the same about "In America," the novel that brought Sontag her
first National Book Award Wednesday night. 
Based on the life of the 19th century stage performer Helena Modjeska, "In
America" was Sontag's first novel since the acclaimed 1992 best seller "The
Volcano Lover." Although highly anticipated, the new book spent little time
on best-seller lists and received a number of negative reviews. The New York
Times' Michiko Kakutani labeled it "a banal, flat-footed narrative." 
Sontag, author of such influential nonfiction works as "Against
Interpretation" and "Illness as Metaphor," was also criticized for the
uncredited borrowing of passages from other sources. 
But novelist Ron Hansen, chair of the NBA fiction committee, praised "In
America" as the "heart and majesty" of American writing in 2000. In a
post-ceremony press conference, Sontag said she was too "squeamish" to read
reviews and questioned their value. 
"I often feel that I really know better what's wrong than any reviewer
does," she said.