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David Rieff has admitted ruefully that he\\u2019s made a career out of telling people what they don\\u2019t want to hear: whether it\\u2019s the politics of the global food crisis in his book \\u201cThe Reproach of Hunger\\u201d, or the failure of the West to prevent the terrible bloodbath of Bosnia in his provocatively-titled \\u201cSlaughterhouse: Bosnia and the failure of the West\\u201d. As a war correspondent, Rieff has worked in the Balkans, in Rwanda and the Congo, in Israel-Palestine, in Afghanistan and Iraq. He\\u2019s not afraid to tackle the big issues: immigration, exile, American imperialism. There are thirteen books in all, including a memoir about his mother, the American writer Susan Sontag.

In Private Passions, David talks to Michael Berkeley about being \\u201cSusan Sontag\\u2019s son\\u201d, and whether that label has at times been a burden. He\\u2019s her only child and Sontag was only 19 when he was born. He reflects on the privilege and yet strangeness of his New York upbringing, and how he has used that background \\u201cto make a living being a critic of everything. That\\u2019s an immense privilege.\\u201d

David Rieff is a passionate fan of Early music, and his choices include the 16th-century composer Orlando di Lassus, and Alfred Deller singing Purcell. Other choices include Bach\\u2019s moving cantata \\u201cIch Habe Genug\\u201d, Shostakovich, Beethoven, and Bluegrass.

A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3\\nProduced by Elizabeth Burke