What Went Wrong When Susan Sontag Met Thomas Mann? | The New Yorker

archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 18 Mar 2026 21:10:19 UTC All snapshots from host www.newyorker.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Skip to main content Newsletter Sign In Search The Latest News Books & Culture Fiction & Poetry Humor & Cartoons Magazine Puzzles & Games Video Podcasts Goings On Shop 100th Anniversary The Weekend Essay What Went Wrong When Susan Sontag Met Thomas Mann? An eyewitness recalls the fraught encounter between a precocious American college student and a titan of German literature. By Alex Ross March 14, 2026 Illustration by Aldo Jarillo; Source images from UCLA Library Special Collections / The Susan Sontag Estate / Getty Listen • 18 minutes “Everything that surrounds my meeting with him has the color of shame”: so begins Susan Sontag’s story “Pilgrimage,” which appeared in this magazine in 1987. The meeting is with the exiled German novelist Thomas Mann, at his home in Pacific Palisades, Lo

archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 18 Mar 2026 21:10:19 UTC All snapshots from host www.newyorker.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Skip to main content Newsletter Sign In Search The Latest News Books & Culture Fiction & Poetry Humor & Cartoons Magazine Puzzles & Games Video Podcasts Goings On Shop 100th Anniversary The Weekend Essay What Went Wrong When Susan Sontag Met Thomas Mann? An eyewitness recalls the fraught encounter between a precocious American college student and a titan of German literature. By Alex Ross March 14,