The Use of Photography

A joint book by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie that uses photographs of a lovers' domestic aftermath to think about desire, illness and mortality.

The two met in January 2003 and became lovers almost at once, and Marie accompanied Ernaux to the Institut Curie for breast cancer surgery. They photographed the scenes left after their nights together: clothes dropped on the floor, displaced furniture, the remains of meals. The book pairs fourteen colour photographs with alternating texts by each author on love, eroticism and the changing body. Alison L. Strayer's English translation was published by Seven Stories Press in October 2024, in a 208-page paperback.

Ernaux, born in France, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. Her books examine class, gender and intimate experience. Marc Marie is a French journalist and photographer. According to the publisher, the project came directly before Ernaux's novel The Years.