The Use of Photography
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Summary
Around the time these photographs were taken, Ernaux was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor-ridden breast, the copious hair loss, the body ravaged by anticancer drugs—this writer who mines her own experience for her work transferred her failing body into photographs. Material things become the sole evidence of love, death, desire, and absence.
"I realized that I was fascinated by the photographs, just as since childhood I have always been drawn to stains: bloodstains, traces of semen, urine on sheets or old mattresses thrown into the hallway; wine stains or food remnants embedded in the wooden buffet table; coffee stains or greasy fingerprints on old letter paper.
The most material of organic stains. I realized that I expected the same from writing. I wanted words to be like those stains we cannot remove."
—The Uses of the Photo
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Literary readers interested in Annie Ernaux's "impersonal autobiography" style and themes of social memory
- Photography enthusiasts or theorists eager to ponder the philosophy of photography and the relationship between images and memory
- Readers who wish to look beyond the surface warmth of family albums and delve into the social significance of private images
- Readers with an appreciation for cross-media collaboration between literature and photography
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting a conventional photography guidebook or a collection of aesthetically pleasing images
- Readers seeking light entertainment or a continuous narrative story
Reading tips
- Start by quickly browsing the images throughout the book to form an initial impression of the visual style, then read Ernaux's text closely to appreciate the intertextuality and gaps between image and word.
- Feel free to close the book at any point and reflect on the "use" of a particular photo in your phone or family album, comparing it with the book's arguments.
- Reading it alongside other works by Ernaux, such as The Years, will give a more complete understanding of her enduring reflections on memory writing.
About the publisher
Shanghai People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher whose list focuses on academic monographs and general-interest titles in philosophy, social sciences, politics and law, economics and management, and history. Among its books are Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties History in the Chinese Dynastic History series; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in foreign literature; the Wenjing Classical Translation Illustrated Edition of The Complete Greek Tragedies of Euripides; and works of social theory such as Max Weber's Economy and Society and Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Its authors include Wang Zhongluo, J.R.R. Tolkien, Luo Niansheng, and Zhou Zuoren.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 作者简介
- 译者简介
- “安妮·埃尔诺作品集” 中文版序言
- 我生命中的那个阶段
- 走廊之作
- 形似“二战”后被剃光头的女性
- 安妮·蓝妮克丝
- 一个秘密
- 战服
- 长假
- 和平
- 为了怎样的启示
- 神坛
- 如污迹一般
- 偶然的旁观者
- 三百万个乳房
- 我想带您去威尼斯
- 当我拍照时
- 待售
- 一两首歌
- 酷暑
- 不可见的场景
- 居里
- 但她很丑！
- 前九位
- 和一个男人的第一次
- 一个真正的家
- 这不是我的身体
- 镜子里
- 相片的悖论
- 我们的故事
- 译者注
- 2022年诺贝尔文学奖“安妮·埃尔诺作品集”
FAQ
Is this book mainly text or images?
Do I need prior knowledge of Annie Ernaux or the two photographers?
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About the author
Annie Ernaux is a contemporary French writer born in 1940 and the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature. Known for her autobiographical writing, she draws on everyday experiences of personal and family life to examine the complex interplay of memory, class, and gender. Her major works include The Black Studio, Event, A Woman's Story, An Empty Closet, The Frozen Woman, Simple Passion, and A Man's Place. Seventeen of her works are available here, spanning foreign literature, inspirational growth, and essays. In her writing she has pioneered an impersonal form of autobiography, addressing individual experience in restrained yet incisive language and giving private memory broader social significance. Her work combines literary experimentation with a concern for reality and has had a wide influence on contemporary French literature and readers worldwide.
Mark Mali is a foreign-literature author about whom relatively limited public information is currently available; Chinese readers still lack a systematic account of his life, nationality, and writing career. As for the work held in our catalog, his representative title The Use of Photographs is classified under foreign literature and serves as the main entry point for understanding his writing. Judging from the title, the work likely revolves around photography as a medium, touching on the relationship between images and memory, record and forgetting, and carrying an essayistic or narrative quality. Because verifiable material is insufficient, this note makes no conjecture about his education, awards, or professional record, and instead sketches the general direction of his concerns on the basis of the available work information alone. For readers who prefer to approach everyday experience through objects and images, Mark Mali offers a reading subject worth noting, while more of his works and creative trajectory await further material.
Lu Yichen is an author about whom limited public information is available. Only one work by this author is currently held in the collection, titled The Use of Photographs. As basic details such as nationality, dates of birth and death, and English name are not recorded, it is difficult to sketch a full picture of the author's personal history or literary output, and observations can only begin with the known work. In terms of common classification, The Use of Photographs is placed under foreign literature, suggesting that the work may involve foreign settings or cross-cultural literary expression, while the word "photographs" in the title hints that images, memory, or visual experience may be important elements. Based on the available information, Lu Yichen's literary profile remains rather indistinct. Readers wishing to learn more about the author's style and concerns may start with this work and look for clues within the text. It is hoped that, as more materials and works come to light, this author's identity and place in literature will gradually become clearer.
