French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Genon, Les Indices de l'oubli
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs
Arnaud Genon
Les Indices de l'oubli
Éditions de la Reine Blanche
Publication date: 08/07/2019
ISBN: 9782955891056
Number of pages: 112
Price: 12 Euros
Leafing through a family photo album is a universal gesture that Arnaud Genon transforms into a literary act. Les indices de l'oubli offers a sensitive and nuanced reflection on our relationship with old family photo albums.
At the same time, the author ponders the memories we keep of those who are no longer with us, which leads him to also question the immutability of our identity. Even though this narrative stems from a personal experience, it immediately resonates with readers, drawing them deeply into the fabric of the reflection.
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Excerpt from the preface by Marta Caraion
"[...] One thinks of Annie Ernaux and the photographs which, in The Years, structure the narrative and capture both social and intimate time—absent images that readers discover by proxy and often recognize, for they are everyone's photographs, or at least the photographs of a world as familiar as the family album, a sort of universal, shared object. Arnaud Genon anchors his project in what might henceforth be considered a genre: in a world of virtual images, family photographic archaeology becomes the contemporary expression of melancholy. In the nineteenth century, people contemplated the vanity of all things while gazing at the ruins of vanished civilizations; today, we immerse ourselves in the traces that families sought to leave of themselves—photographs that remain, for us still (but for how long?), material objects and nostalgic relics open to decoding and lament. [...]"
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Arnaud Genon (born 1975) has spent several years studying the work of Hervé Guibert and, more broadly, self-writing, autofiction, and contemporary literature. Author of several academic books and articles, he has published two works of autofiction: Tu vivras toujours (2016) and Mes écrivains. Une histoire très intime de la littérature, ou pourquoi j’ai commencé à écrire (2018). Les indices de l’oubli offers a sensitive and nuanced reflection on our relationship with old family photo albums. At the same time, the author ponders the memories we keep of those who are no longer with us, which leads him to also question the immutability of our identity. Even though this narrative stems from a personal experience, it immediately resonates with readers, drawing them deeply into the fabric of the reflection.
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Table of Contents
Preface by Marta Caraion 7
A Story 17
Décorum 21
One-Way Trip 23
Indices 25
Family Resemblance 27
The Fragile Art of Posing 29
Captions 31
Seaside Photos 33
Merely a Photograph 35
Shared Posterity 37
Lack of Images 39
The Secret of a Life 41
Why Photographs?
The Guy de Maupassant Hypothesis 45
The Art of Confusion 47
Looking at Photos
On a November Sunday 49
Signs of Recognition 51
The Art of Confusion (Continued) 53
The Mausoleum of Moments in Time 55
Messages from the Desert 57
Sensation 59
Why Photographs?
The Georges Perros Hypothesis 61
The Other Age 63
Proustian Variation
(Before Going to Bed Early) 65
Tenderness 67
Ghost Images 69
Failed Photos 71
The Talisman 73
Who Is It? 75
Rimbaudian Echoes 77
Objects 79
The Absent One 81
This Other... 83
Photo Afternoons 85
The Photographic Act 87
Blank Photos 89
The Height of Photography? 93
Gifts 95
And Then... 97
Medium 99
Contradictions? 101
All That We Have Left 103
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Rooted in contemporary autofiction and the exploration of self-writing, Arnaud Genon examines how physical photographs anchor our recollections of those who are gone. The text engages with a rich tradition of life-writing and memory studies, echoing concerns found in the works of Annie Ernaux, Hervé Guibert, and Marcel Proust. By turning the private gesture of leafing through an album into a shared literary meditation, the book investigates the fragile boundary between personal history and collective nostalgia within modern visual culture.
This reflective essay will appeal to readers interested in contemporary French literature, memoir, and the philosophy of memory. It offers valuable insights for those questioning how material relics and absent images shape our understanding of identity and loss. Scholars and enthusiasts of autofiction and modern literary criticism will find it a compelling addition to the discourse on photography and autobiography, bridging the gap between intimate personal experience and universal human questioning.