To read At the Same Time—the nonfiction collection Susan Sontag was working on before her 2004 death—is to grasp what a bold mind and voice we have lost. But this collection, though less groundbreaking than Against Interpretation, Illness As Metaphor and On Photography, also reassures us that Sontag’s writing, wit, grace and resolve will influence future generations. The book is structured according to Sontag’s wishes, with each essay appearing in its unedited form.

At the Same Time opens with two introductions, one penned by Sontag’s editors, the other by her son David Rieff. In subsequent pages, the collection illuminates the late writer’s many passions: literature, translation, beauty and aesthetics, politics, ethics and photography. Featuring forewords Sontag wrote for translated works like Leonid Tsypkin’s Summer in Baden-Baden and Anna Banti’s Artemisia, the collection’s first third offers an intimate portrait of Sontag the reader and entices us to get our hands on her recommended reads.

The second third of the collection reflects on September 11 and its aftermath. Written right after the terrorist attacks, “9.11.01,” the first essay of the set, makes observations about terrorism and American politics that may now seem unoriginal. But read alongside the reflections on Abu Ghraib and the terrorist attacks’ one-year anniversary that appear in subsequent pages, these essays reveal the power of candor when it was eschewed, courage when it was confused with consent, and remind us how Sontag has influenced our understandings of life after September 11.

Lining the concluding pages are Sontag’s final public speeches, each reminding us why the collection’s back cover features a handwritten note that says, “Do something” three times. These lectures illuminate the ethical importance of translating foreign works and the political possibilities of writing and truth telling, and each confirms Sontag’s belief that “in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.”