John Berger was born in London in 1926. His seminal Ways of Seeing was one of the most influential books on art in the twentieth century. His many books, innovative in form and far-reaching in their historical and political insight, include To the Wedding , King and the Booker Prize-winning novel, G . He died, aged ninety, in January 2017. Susan Sontag was born in Manhattan in 1933 and studied at the universities of Chicago, Harvard and Oxford. Her non-fiction works include Against Interpretation , On Photography , Illness as Metaphor , AIDS and its Metaphors , Regarding the Pain of Others and At the Same Time . She was also the author of four novels, including The Volcano Lover and In America , as well as a collection of stories and several plays. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.

In 2001 she was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work and in 2003 she received the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She died in December 2004.