Sontag, who was born and raised in New York City, was as controversial as she was revolutionary. She wrote books, which were also turned into plays (like Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea), she was an activist and advocate for women's rights, and was both lauded and criticised for her commentary on American culture. In fact, much of her resolute political writings are just as relevant today as they were when they were originally published. "The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone — its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads," she wrote in 1967, for the Partisan Review.