Herve Guibert: The Only Face

A new edition of one of only two photobooks that Guibert published in his life, reissued here for the first timeThis photobook by Hervé Guibert, The Only Face, is not a novel in the traditional sense but is nonetheless filled with characters, settings and mystery. It starts with bodies—their faces either eclipsed or out of frame—before unleashing a bravura sequence of portraits: friends, lovers, family and Guibert himself. As the book approaches its finale, his subjects are obscured and then disappear completely, leaving behind the objects they touched, until even those vanish, leaving only light.

Most of the photographs in The Only Face were taken on Guibert’s European and American travels, but their settings are, with few exceptions, small private interiors. The effect is an inwardness that communicates Guibert’s deep affinity with his subjects. The Only Face, originally published in Paris in 1984, is the second and final photobook Guibert published in his lifetime (preceded by the photo-novel Suzanne and Louise, also reissued in English by Magic Hour Press).

This new edition presents Guibert’s photographs in their original sequence, with his titles and introductory text translated by Christine Pichini and a new cover by the artist Marc Hundley. French writer and photographer Hervé Guibert (1955–91) was the author of 25 books, beginning with Propaganda Death (1977), a fictional memoir in the tradition of Georges Bataille, Jean Genet and the Marquis de Sade. His best-selling novel To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (1990) was inspired by his long friendship with Michel Foucault and the two men’s experiences living with AIDS, which tragically ended Guibert’s life at the age of 36.