Photobiography: Photographic Self-Writing in Proust, Guibert, Ernaux, Mace

204 Pages·2013·6.432 MB·English

by  Akane Kawakami

Photobiography
Photographic Self-Writing in
Proust, Guibert, Ernaux, Macé
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Professor Robin Fiddian, Wadham College, Oxford (Spanish)
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Professor Paul Garner, University of leeds (Spanish)
Professor andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex (English)
Professor Marian Hobson Jeanneret,
Queen Mary University of london (French)
Professor Catriona Kelly, new College, Oxford (Russian)
Professor Martin Mclaughlin, Magdalen College, Oxford (Italian)
Professor Martin Maiden, Trinity College, Oxford (linguistics)
Professor Peter Matthews, St John’s College, Cambridge (linguistics)
dr Stephen Parkinson, linacre College, Oxford (Portuguese)
Professor Suzanne Raitt, William and Mary College, Virginia (English)
Professor Ritchie Robertson, The Queen’s College, Oxford (German)
Professor david Shepherd, Keele University (Russian)
Professor Michael Sheringham, all Souls College, Oxford (French)
Professor alison Sinclair, Clare College, Cambridge (Spanish)
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Photobiography
Photographic Self-Writing in
Proust, Guibert, Ernaux, Macé
❖
akane Kawakai
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
2013
First published 2013
Published by the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
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Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
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© Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2013
ISBN 978-1-907975-86-8(hbk)
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Contents
❖
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Photography and Proust 17
2 Hervé Guibert: Photography and Love 39
3 Annie Ernaux: Photography and the Real 83
4 Gérard Macé: Photography and Self-Creation 131
Conclusion 171
Appendix 1: Interview with Annie Ernaux 177
Appendix 2: Macé’s photo-texts 182
Select Bibliography 183
Index 191

ACKnoWLeDGeMents
❖
The idea for this book emerged out of a conversation over coffee with Rachel
Bowlby. Annie Ernaux generously answered my questions and read my work, and
waited patiently for me when I was late for our first appointment; Gérard and Anne
Macé were as generous as ever, opening up their home and photograph collection
to me. Kathrin Yacavone calmed my last-minute Barthes-induced panic, and Colin
Davis and Graham Nelson, of Legenda, have been supportive and encouraging
throughout. I owe a great debt of gratitude to these and many others.
The sections on L’Image fantôme and Le Seul Visage in chapter 2 have been
adapted from my article, ‘Un coup de foudre photographique: Autobiography and
Photography in Hervé Guibert’, Romance Studies, 25 (2007), 211–25; and parts of the
section on L’Usage de la photo in Chapter 3 have been adapted from my article, ‘Proof
of Life: Annie Ernaux’s Plural Self-Portrait in L’Usage de la photo’, French Studies, 64.4
(2010), 451–62. I am grateful to the editors of Romance Studies and French Studies for
their kind permission to re-use this material.
English translations of À la recherche du temps perdu are taken from Marcel Proust,
In Search of Lost Time, trans. by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev.
by D. J. Enright (vol. vi trans. by Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, rev. by D.
J. Enright), 6 vols (London: Vintage, 2000 [1992–93]). Translations of La Chambre
claire and Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes have been taken from Roland Barthes,
Camera Lucida, trans. by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), and
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, trans. by Richard Howard (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1977). Translations of À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie are taken
from Hervé Guibert, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, trans. by Linda
Coverdale (London: Quartet Books, 1991), and those of La Place and Une femme
are taken from Annie Ernaux, Positions, trans. by Tanya Leslie (London: Quartet
Books, 1991) and A Woman’s Story, also trans. by Tanya Leslie (New York: Seven
Stories Press, 1991). All other translations are my own.
This book is dedicated to Paul, as always, and to Ryuji.
a.k., London, July 2013