Grands écrivains. Les auteurs célèbres vus par de grands photographes

Some of them are mysterious and shy away such as Salinger or Henry Roth, others are icons such as Malraux, Henry Miller or Nabokov, but at one moment or other they all attracted attention - or an obsession - from and among photographers. The work, in the form of huge vademecum, presents 250 portraits of famous writers. from Achebe to Zanzotto, signed by Herbert List, Sophie Bassouls or Marion Ettlinger. The texts – mini biographies - are imaginative even though the translation from the Italian plays certain tricks. For example, Cavafy (written Kavafis in Italian) finds himself between Kafka eand Kawabata… We regret certain absences such as Chekhov or Tolstoï, we would have like to have more details on certain photographs. Proust on his death bed by Man Ray, Sartre with his pipe on the Pont des Arts by Cartier-Bresson, or Nabokov catching a butterfly with a net by Philippe Halsman have become such classics that they each deserved a little essay.

• Grands écrivains. Les auteurs célèbres vus par de grands photographes, éditions du Chêne, 2014, 512 p., €35.