Photography-Embedded Literature – The 1990s

Here is my bibliography of works of fiction and poetry published in the years 1990-1999 containing embedded photographs. You can see individual bibliographies for other years underneath the pull-down menu “Photo-Embedded Literature” at the top of Vertigo. I continue to update these lists as I learn of new books. If you know of a book not included on my list, please let me know in a comment. [Last updated May 2, 2024.]

Walter Abish. 99: The New Meaning. Providence: Burning Deck, 1990. Five unconventional stories by Abish with five photographs by his wife, the artist Cecile Abish.

Pierre Alferi. Kub Or. Paris: P.O.L., 1994. Alferi’s poems each contain seven lines of seven syllables. In the middle of the book is a sequence of seven small b&w photographs by Suzanne Doppelt. Translated into English in 2004 by Cole Swensen and published in the US by Burning Deck.

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Michael Andrews. The Poet from the City of Angels. Bombshelter Press, 1990. Poems and photographs by the author.

Nick Bantock. The Forgetting Room.  NY: HarperCollins, 1997. Many types of illustrations throughout.

Nick Bantock. Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. SF: Chronicle Books, 1991. Griffin & Sabine is the first in a highly popular series of seven titles that has spawned many imitators since. I won’t index any of the other six titles in this particular series, but here they are: Sabine’s Notebook (1992), The Golden Mean (1993), The Gryphon (2001), Alexandria (2002), The Morning Star (2003), and The Pharos Gate (2016).

Nick Bantock. The Museum at Purgatory. NY: HarperCollins, 1999. Many types of illustrations throughout.

Konrad Bayer. The Head of Vitus Bering. London: Atlas press, 1994. Contains a single b&w photograph on the first page of the text. A “revised” version of the 1979 English translation by Walter Billeter from the 1965 German original Der Kopf des Vitus Bering: Ein Portrait in Prosa. In a New Yorker interview with Joseph Cuomo in 2001, W.G. Sebald revealed that the second section of his book of poems Nach der Nature (After Nature), which deals with Georg Wilhelm Steller, owes its existence to Sebald’s chance reading of Bayer’s book, which delves into the mind of the 18th century explorer who dies in the sea now named after him. “He’d only written a number of very slender little things, among them was a book called The Head of Vitus Bering, and that had in it a footnote referring to an eighteenth century German botanist and zoologist called Georg Wilhelm Steller, who happens to have the same initials I have, and who happened to have been born in a place that my mother visited when she was pregnant…”

Brooke Bergan. Storyville: A Hidden Mirror. Wakefield, RI: Asphodel Press, 1994. Poems relating to Storyville, the famous New Orleans red light district, with four b&w photographs by E.J. Bellocq.

Robert Bly & Stephen Brigidi. Angels of Pompeii. NY: Ballantyne, 1992. A collaborative project of poetry by Bly and photographs by Brigidi.

William Boyd. Nat Tate: American Artist, 1928-1960.  Cambridge: 21 Publishing, 1998. Spoof biography of a fictional artist, containing a number of photographs and other reproductions. For my brief comments on this book, click here.

Bertolt Brecht. War Primer. London: Libris, 1998. Originally published in East Germany in 1955 as Kriegsfibel, this is Brecht’s reaction to World War II and its immediate predecessor, the Spanish Civil War. While in exile in Finland, Sweden, and the US, Brecht created these “photo-epigrams” by clipping photographs and articles from newspapers and magazines (including Life) and writing brief four-line poems that relate to the images. Although partly anti-war, Brecht’s poems mostly direct their vitriol toward the politicians, generals, and national leaders – or, in his term “misleaders” – who sent their young men off to murder each other and kill or maim millions of innocent civilians. The original edition had only seventy photographs and poems, while later editions like this one have eighty-five.

Rudy Burckhard & Vincent Katz. Boulevard Transportation. NY: Tibor de Nagy Editions, 1997. This is more a collaboration between poet and photographer than an example of photographs being embedded in a text, but it is a great example of a writer focused closely on the images that inspire his poems. The poet Vincent Katz seems to have written many of the poems in this volume with specific Burckhardt photographs in mind, giving great vigor to the interaction between text and image. Burckhardt’s photographs span the years 1939-1995.

Robert Creeley & Elsa Dorfman. En Famille. NY: Granary Books, 1999. A longish poem about family by Creeley with photographs by the renowned Boston photographer Elsa Dorfman.

Jack Finney. From Time to Time. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995. A photographically-illustrated novel and a sequel to his 1970 Time and Again.

Nikky Finney. Rice. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1995. Poems about the American south, with ten uncredited historic b&w portrait photographs of African Americans.

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch. Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995. A graphic novel that updates the traditional Punch & Judy story, with occasional photographs used in place of drawings.

William H. Gass.  “Emma Enters a Sentence of Elizabeth Bishop’s”.  Conjunctions 30, 1998.  pp. 198-241. A novella with eight photographs by Michael Eastman. This is one of the finer examples of the careful placement and sizing of embedded photographs in a work of fiction. But when this piece later appeared in Cartesian Sonatas and other Novellas in 1998, the photographs were eliminated because Gass thought they would not reproduce well on the paper stock being used for that publication For my review of this story, click here.

Juan Goytisolo. Saga de los Marx.  Barcelona: Mondadori, 1993. Translated into English in 1996.

Juan Goytisolo. The Marx Family Saga. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. An English translation from the 1993 Spanish original Saga de los Marx. Contains a single photograph – a portrait of the Marx family’s servant Helen Demuthone. For my review of this book, click here.

Marion Halligan. Out of the Picture. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1996. Eight stories (‘Stories Invented’) and six essays (‘Stories Found’) inspired by photographs from the National Library of Australia’s Pictorial Collection.

Jana Harris. Oh How Can I Keep on Singing? Voices of Pioneer Women. NY: Ontario Review Press, 1993. Poems with twenty-one b&w historic photographs of the old west credited to a variety of sources.

Barbara Hodgson.  The Sensualist.  Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 1998. Many types of illustrations throughout.

Barbara Hodgson.  The Tattooed Map.  Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 1995. Many types of illustrations throughout.

Susan Howe.  Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979.  NY: New Directions, 1996. Contains several images.  Two of the longer poems, “Hinge Picture” and “Chanting at the Crystal Sea,” each contain a photograph.

Susan Howe.  Pierce-Arrow. NY: New Directions, 1999. Contains a number of images, including one photograph in the poem “Arisbe.”

Michael Jennings. Totems. Lima, Ohio: Basfal Books, 1994. Poems by Jennings, photographs by Scott Ian Barry.

Vincent Katz and Rudy Burckhardt. New York Hello! Chicago: Ommation Press, 1990. Poems by Katz and New York City street photographs in b&w by Burckhardt.

Judy Kravis & Peter Morgan. Rough Diamante. Cork: Road Books, 1992. Poems by Kravis and sixteen tipped-in color photographic plates by Morgan. Limited to 500 copies.

Leena Krohn. The Eyes of the Fingertips Are Opening. Helsinki: Musta Taide, 1993. Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas. Poetry by Krohn and photographs by Marja Pirilä.

Susan Mabel Maney. The Amnesia Victim. Rochester: Visual Studies Workshop, 1990. Short prose works illustrated with b&w photographs and images.

Javier Marias.  All Souls. London: Harvill, 1992. Marias’ wonderful novel of a Spanish scholar (and book collector) teaching at Oxford contains two photographs – a portrait of the British writer John Gawsworth (1912-1970) and a photograph of Gawsworth’s death mask. Translated from the Spanish original Todas las almas (1989). For my review of this book, click here.

Javier Marías.  Negra Espalda del Tiempo.  Barcelona: Ediciones Alfaguara, 1998. Includes reproductions of unattributed photographs, newspaper  clippings and other visual elements in his novel. Translated into English as Dark Back of Time in 2001.

Carole Maso. The Art Lover. SF: North Point Press, 1990. In Maso’s novel about New York City and the AIDS crisis, the narrator’s father has just died and her best friend is dying of AIDS. The book contains many photographs and other illustrations (all credited to various sources). For my review of this book, click here.

Ronit Matalon.  Ze im hapanim eleinu.  Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1995. Translated into English in 1998 as The One Facing Us.

Ronit Matalon.  The One Facing Us.  NY: Henry Holt, 1998. Translation from the Hebrew original Ze im hapanim eleinu (1995). An Israeli teenager is sent to Africa to live with her uncle.  Family photographs end up serving as her de facto family history. Contains numerous family photographs. For more on this book, click here.

Thomas McGonigle. Going to Patchogue. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1992. Contains five uncredited photographs (probably by the author) of the city of Patchogue, on Long Island.

Dave McKean. Cages. Kitchen Sink Press, 1998. A 500-page graphic novel about a painter, a novelist, and a musician, that is often about the subject of creativity itself. McKean occasionally used manipulated photographs in addition to his drawings.

John Muckle.  Cyclomotors.  Essex: Festival Books, 1997. Muckle’s portrait of a dysfunctional family in 1950s working class England contains a number of photographs of cyclomotors (motorized bicycles).  For my review of this book, click here.

Timothy O’Grady. I Could Read the Sky. London: Harvill Press, 1997. A novel about the life of an Irish immigrant (and all Irish immigrants) working in England, with very complementary photographs by Steve Pyke. Written somewhat in the style of John Berger, who wrote the Preface. Republished in 2023.

Bernard Plossu. Poèmes du Jardin de Poussière. Fontaine-les-Dijon: Editions Gramma, 1995. A bilingual edition of poems in French and English accompanied by photographs by Plossu, a well-known French photographer.

Jan E. Ramjerdi. RE.LA.VIR. FC@, 1999. According to the publisher’s website, “RE.LA.VIR renders rape through the narrative filter of an online hypertext program. Juxtaposing savvy technical language and graphic scenes of sexual violence, the novel creates an alternative techno fictive space for representing lived experience.” The seventeen b&w photographs are, according to James Elkins, “almost all nude studies, in the manner of early 20th century classicizing photography from Stieglitz to Weston. . . .mostly set in a garden.”

Christoph Ransmayr. The Terrors of Ice and Darkness. NY: Grove, 1991. An English translation of the German original Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (1984). For my review of this book, click here.

William Rawle. Diary of an Amateur Photographer. NY: Penguin, 1998. A novel in the form of a scrapbook, containing numerous photographs.

Julián Ríos. Larva: Midsummer Night’s Babel. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1990. Contains a section at the end of the novel called “Babelle’s Photo Album,” with 50 black-and-white snapshots of London street scenes. The images are uncredited, but seem to be by the author. Translated from the Spanish original Larva: Babel de una noche de San Juan (1983).

Julián Ríos. Poundemonium. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1997. Rios’ “homage to Ezra Pound” serves as the second novel in the series begun with Larva (1990). The book contains an appendix called “Babelle’s Photo Album” with 63 b&w photographs that are described as “Snapshots in alphabetical order of some of the London sites mentioned in this novel.” This is the first English translation of the 1986 Spanish original Poundemónium: Homenaje a Ezra Pound.

Georges Rodenbach. Bruges-la-Morte. London: Atlas Press, 1993. Originally published in French in 1892, Bruges-la-Morte is probably the first work of fiction published in which the author included photographs that were intended to complement the text. This edition is a translation by Thomas Duncan (first published in 1903), revised by Terry Hale, and includes some, but not all of the original photographs. For my writings on Rodenbach’s novel, click here.

Jacques Roubaud. The Great Fire of London. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1991. Written after the death of his wife, the photographer Alix Roubaud, this novel contains two enigmatic photograph by Alix. Roubaud is a member of Oulipo. Translated from the French original Grand Incendie de Londres (1989). For my review of this book, click here.

Cynthia Rylant. Something Permanent. NY: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1994. Poems by Rylant, accompanied by FSA photographs by Walker Evans, selected by the poet.

Leslie Scalapino. Crowd and not evening or light: a poem. Oakland: O Books/Sun and Moon Press, 1992. Book-length poem with seventy-six b&w snapshots, apparently by the poet. For my review of this book, click here.

Leslie Scalapino. Green and Black: Selected Writings. Jersey City: Talisman House, 1996. Contains variant excerpts from her book-length poem Crowd and not evening or light: a poem (1992), including six photographs.

Gregory Scofield. I Knew Two Métis Women. Polestar Press, 1999. Poems about his mother and aunts, with several photographs that are probably from his family album.

W.G. Sebald. Die Ausgewanderten.  Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 1992. Contains numerous photographs. Translated in English in 1996 as The Emigrants.

W.G. Sebald. The Emigrants.  London: Harvill Press, 1996. The first English translation of the 1992 German original Die Ausgewanderten.

W.G. Sebald. Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine Englische Wallfahrt.  Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 1995. Contains numerous photographs. Translated in English in 1998 as The Rings of Saturn.

W.G. Sebald. The Rings of Saturn.  London: Harvill Press, 1998.

W.G. Sebald. Schwindel. Gefühle.  Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 1990. Contains many photographs. Translated into English in 1999 as Vertigo.

W.G. Sebald. Vertigo.  London: Harvill Press, 1999. The English translation of the 1990 German original Schwindel. Gefühle, with many photographs.

Ronan Sheehan. Foley’s Asia. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1999. Sheehan’s novel of atrocities wrought in Asia and elsewhere in the nineteenth century by the British Empire is told partly through the stories behind the sculptures that John Henry Foley (1818-1874) created of the “illustrious” men that England and Ireland celebrated as heroes. Some of Foley’s works are shown in photographs throughout the book, along with several other images.

Carol Shields.  The Stone Diaries.  Toronto: Random House, 1993. A fictional autobiography in which a woman sees the entirety of her life, including her own birth and death. With a number of photographs purporting to be of her family.

Josef Škvorecký. Scherzo Capriccioso: vesely sen o Dvorakovi. Prague: Odeon Praha, 1991. The Czech edition of Škvorecký’s novel Dvorak in Love contains a number of photographs. There is an earlier 1983 Canadian edition (also in Czech) from Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto, which I have not seen, which may or may not contain photographs.

Jo Soares.  O homem que matou Getulio Vargas: Biografia de um anarquista.  Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998. Translated into English in 2001 as Twelve Fingers: Biography of an Anarchist. Contains many illustrations, most of which are photographs. Note the six-fingered hand emerging from the shadows on the cover image.

Art Spiegelman. Maus II – A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. NY: Pantheon Books, 1991. A Holocaust classic. A fictionalized retelling of a true story of the author interviewing his father about his experiences during World War II, which includes two photographs: a photograph of the author’s brother Richlieu (1937-1943) on the book’s dedication page and a photograph of the author’s father on one of the book’s last pages.

Anne Tardos. Cat Licked the Garlic. Vancouver: Tsunami Editions, 1992. Plurilingual (English, French, Hungarian & German) poems with numerous photographic images created from modified video frames shot by the author.

Anne Tardos. Uxudo. Berkeley: Tuumba Press & Oakland: O Books, 1999. Plurilingual (English, French, Hungarian & German) poems with numerous photographic images created from modified video frames shot by the author.

Dubravka Ugrešiƈ. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender. NY: New Directions, 1999. A novel about memory and photography, with a single photograph facing the title page (and repeated on the front cover).

Keith Waldrop. Light While There Is Light: An American History. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1993. Waldrop’s poetic novel about a search for the right religious sect contains several photographs.

Curtis White. Anarcho-Hindu: The Damned, Weird Book of Fate.  Normal, IL: Fiction Collective 2, 1995.  With six photographs by Donald Stuefloten.  An experimental novel in which the narrator encounters Siva, a woman who seems to have multiple identities, some of which are in the past.  The photographs depict a woman posing as the Hindu goddess Siva (or Shiva) in several forms.

John Yau. Big City Primer: Reading New York at the End of the Twentieth Century. NY: Timken Publishers, 1991. Poems by Yau, photographs by Bill Barrette.