Thanks to an anonymous donor, the UCLA Library has acquired the papers of Susan Sontag, hailed as one of the nation's best-known and most influential American writers.

The extensive literary archive contains manuscripts of Sontag's writings; her correspondence with renowned contemporary writers, performing and visual artists and other figures of intellectual, cultural and historical note; her personal notebooks; and her private library, which comprises more than 20,000 books in literature, the arts, history and the social sciences.

"I am delighted that my papers archive is going to UCLA, thereby renewing an old connection with Southern California," said Sontag who, at age 16, attended summer school at UCLA. "There are sentimental reasons: My mother grew up in Los Angeles during and after World War I, and I spent the later part of my childhood here. And there are intellectual reasons, of course: UCLA and its remarkable libraries offer, for those who desire it, an extraordinary and intense environment for learning."

Sontag's papers will be housed in the Charles E. Young Research Library's Department of Special Collections, already the repository for papers by such contemporary American literary greats as Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, Norman Cousins, Aldous Huxley, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Paul Monette and Carolyn See.

"Susan Sontag is one of the most important American literary figures of the second half of the 20th century, and we are delighted to have acquired her papers and her personal library," said UCLA University Librarian Gloria Werner. "These materials complement our other strong holdings of the papers of major contemporary writers and will be used by scholars at UCLA and worldwide who seek to better understand literature and the roles that it, and the writer, play in modern society."

Because the paper chase in which major university libraries have engaged in recent years has become more and more competitive, the acquisition is seen by many as a literary coup for UCLA.

"The UCLA Library has one of the great special collections in the country," said Victoria Steele, head of the Department of Special Collections. "This sends a strong message that we are seriously committed to archival materials and the research they support."

Two years ago, Steele, on her first day on the job as head of the department, approached Sontag at a small luncheon at which the author spoke. In the course of their conversation, Steele asked Sontag what her plans were for her papers. "She looked very startled and said, 'Well, no one's asked me about it before.' I told her I would be very interested in talking to her about it."

Nine months later, after Sontag had her papers appraised, Steele was contacted. "A wonderful alumna who understood the opportunity this presented came forward to help us out," Steele said of the gift.

The breadth and depth of what UCLA has purchased still amazes her, Steele said. "Sontag's a true polymath, and this is what gives her papers such interest and value. She's a versatile writer, a wide-ranging thinker and a committed activist. She's produced works of fiction, groundbreaking essays, written and directed films, while also carrying on a wide correspondence with many of the leading cultural figures of the last 50 years."

A coveted prize in themselves are some 2,500 letters to and from luminaries in nearly every field -- Joseph Brodsky, Jean Cocteau, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Richard Avedon, Bruce Chatwin, Noam Chomsky, Judy Collins, E.L. Doctorow, Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth, among them.

Among Sontag's four novels is "In America," which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2000. She's also written a collection of stories and seven works of nonfiction. She was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2001, considered second only to the Nobel Prize for literary prestige. She has been a human rights activist for nearly three decades.

"I can think of no other person whose work and perspective have had a more positive impact upon American intellectual and cultural life during the past four decades than Susan Sontag," said Thomas R. Wortham, chair of the English Department. "The benefit of these documents for future students will be enormous as they try, long after we are all gone, to make sense out of the curious, revolutionary legacy we appear to be leaving for them to build upon."