Where the Stress Falls

Includes ardent pieces on writers from the author's own private canon - Machado de Assis, Barthes, W G Sebald, Borges, Tsvetaeva and Elizabeth Hardwick. This work shares her passions for film, dance, photography, painting, opera and theatre. It explores her own commitments to the work (and activism) of conscience and to the vocation of the writer.

"Where the Stress Falls" is divided into three sections: the first, 'Reading', includes ardent pieces on writers from Sontag's own private canon - Machado de Assis, Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Borges, Tsvetaeva and Elizabeth Hardwick. In the second, 'Seeing', she shares her passions for film, dance, photography, painting, opera and theatre. And in the final section, 'There and Here', Sontag explores her own commitments to the work (and activism) of conscience and to the vocation of the writer.