THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

A Nobel Prize–winning author and her journalist lover tell the story of their affair.

In 2003, Ernaux began a passionate relationship with her co-author, Marc Marie. At the time, Ernaux had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment and was about to have surgery for breast cancer. The author soon discovered that her physical desire for Marie was matched by an equal desire to take pictures of the “material representation[s]” of their sexual encounters. When she told Marie that she was photographically recording the “[clothing] compositions…that organized themselves according to unknown laws, movements and gestures,” she learned that he had felt a desire to do the same. In this book, Ernaux pairs 14 of the more than 40 photos they took together with two essays, each produced independently of the other, by the author and by Marie. The photos record colorful “landscape[s]” left in the aftermath of encounters that took place over several months in multiple locations, including various rooms in Ernaux’s home and foreign hotels. As they describe each “scene,” the essays provide details about Ernaux and Marie’s developing relationship, like how they spent their time together on the day of the photograph or the songs they chose to represent “the elusive succession of their days.” With her trademark clarity and simplicity, Ernaux’s essays also grapple with her struggle to come to accept both her diagnosis and the physical changes brought about by her cancer treatments, like baldness, loss of body hair, and scarring. The result of the pair’s unique word-and-image collaboration is a deeply poignant yet also celebratory expression of eroticism.

Luminous and reflective writing in the face of death.