National Book Award Winner
In America
by Susan Sontag
Summary
A historical novel inspired by the life of a celebrated Polish stage actress who emigrates to America in the 1870s with a small entourage intent on founding a utopian commune in California. The book blends documentary fragments, letters, and shifting narrative voices to probe questions of identity, ambition, and reinvention. It stands as Sontag's most expansive engagement with the immigrant experience and the seductions of American self-creation.
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Historical Context & Significance
Sontag was a world-renowned essayist; this work was her final major fiction project and won amidst a field of much younger finalists.