The literary comeback of 2025: Why everyone's quoting Sontag again

It started, as these things often do, on Instagram. A scan of Susan Sontag's notebook in Helvetica type, posted by an aesthetic account better known for café shots and Proustian lighting. "Love words, agonise over sentences," it read. It had 112,000 likes.

In a year where cultural discourse seems more fragile than ever, Sontag's voice cuts through. Aphoristic, self-possessed, and unafraid to court complexity, she's re-entered the conversation not just as a thinker, but as a kind of literary style icon. 

Her influence is everywhere: in the spate of recent essay collections that mimic her clipped, declarative tone; in the surge of Substack newsletters peddling highbrow self-examination; and even in the TikTok videos that splice her quotes between shots of book-laden nightstands.

Why now? The short answer is that Sontag offers something deeply unfashionable: difficulty. In an age of oversharing and instant reaction, she demanded reflection. Her essays resisted the confessional trend currently dominating everything from book blurbs to political memoirs. Instead, she asked questions with sharp edges and gave answers that never softened the blow.

But it’s not just the writing. Sontag’s resurgence is part of a larger hunger for substance in a culture often accused of being too slick, too curated, too empty. For younger readers especially, discovering Sontag is like finding a trapdoor in the floorboards of modern discourse. Suddenly, you're in a room with actual stakes.

There’s also a visual component. Sontag’s monochrome aesthetic and that trademark white streak make her catnip for a generation trained to value the photogenic. You can be critical and curated. Think hard and look good. In this, she feels both ancient and oddly futuristic — a ghost haunting our feeds.

Of course, there's more to Sontag than aesthetics and aphorisms. She was one of the 20th century’s most rigorous public intellectuals, writing on art, photography, politics, illness, war, and everything in between. Against Interpretation gave us her now-famous call to “recover our senses.” On Photography remains an essential text on visual culture. Illness as Metaphor still resonates in a post-pandemic world increasingly attuned to the politics of the body.

Where to start with Sontag:

1. Against Interpretation — A blistering, brainy manifesto that redefined how we talk about art.

2. On Photography — Still the sharpest thing written about how we see, frame, and consume images.

3. Regarding the Pain of Others — Her late-career reflection on war photography and the ethics of witnessing.

4. Notes on "Camp" — Essential reading for understanding not just camp, but Sontag’s mix of intellect and style.

5. Illness as Metaphor — Profound, precise, and deeply human — a must-read in a culture obsessed with wellness discourse.

So yes, Sontag is back. Not just in the classroom or on the bookshelf, but in the algorithm. Whether that means we’re actually reading her or just quoting her into the void is another matter. But if 2025 is shaping up to be the year we finally stop apologising for being clever, Sontag might just be the patron saint we deserve.