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    And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos

    Author John Berger
    Introduction by Richard Deming
    Ebook
    New York Review Books | NYRB Classics
    On sale Jun 16, 2026 | 120 Pages | 9798896230588
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    A stunning, unclassifiable work by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers and writers, this book is an inspiring amalgam of letters, poetry, and profound musings on everything from Caravaggio to the nature of time itself.

    And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos may be the most original of John Berger’s books; certainly, it is among the most moving. A meditation on first and last things, it is divided into two parts, one reflecting on humanity’s relation to time, the other on our place in space. “Once,” the first part is called, and like fairy tales, the sections that follow, encompassing essays, stories, and passages of plainspoken poetry, echo that initial once, as Berger contemplates the ways in which death and love and sex and life revolve around each other in human existence and find expression in art and work and the observances of daily life.

    Part two, called “Here,” investigates the idea of home in a world where capitalism has rendered everyone homeless, not only the countless people who, over the last two centuries and ever more now, have been driven by need to leave their native ground for strange cities and suburbs and slums, but also the well-to-do and the rich, content to exchange the reality of home for the fungibility of property. Against such backgrounds, Berger considers the role of storytelling and the power of poetry and painting, and above all—because a letter addressed to the absent beloved resonates throughout the pages of this book—is the renewing and unsettling persistence of love and desire.
    John Berger (1926–2017) was a novelist, painter, poet, and one of the most influential art critics of the last 75 years. His many books include Ways of Seeing, the Booker Prize–winning novel G, A Fortunate Man, the Into Their Labours trilogy, and From A to X.

    Richard Deming is a poet, essayist, and critic whose work explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, and visual culture. His most recent book is This Exquisite Loneliness. He teaches at Yale University, where he served as the founding director of Creative Writing.
    John Berger View titles by John Berger
    "Modest, uncontentious reflections on things personal and epochal—time and timelessness, love, home—by the noted Marxist critic of art and society....Explorations of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Caravaggio overlap with self-inscription." —Kirkus


    “There is great stillness in Berger’s prose. But after a few pages, his statements start to sing and go on singing.” — New Republic


    “An elegant fusion of philosophy, memoir, and poetry.” — Jacob Brogan, The New Yorker


    “[John Berger] radically altered and enlarged my ideas of what a book could be.” — Geoff Dyer, The Guardian


    “[John Berger is] a great prose poet of homesickness, of the yearning to belong. Surging from the immediate and erotic to the historical and social, his vision is as grand as it is drastic” — Peter Schjeldahl, The New York Times

    About

    A stunning, unclassifiable work by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers and writers, this book is an inspiring amalgam of letters, poetry, and profound musings on everything from Caravaggio to the nature of time itself.

    And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos may be the most original of John Berger’s books; certainly, it is among the most moving. A meditation on first and last things, it is divided into two parts, one reflecting on humanity’s relation to time, the other on our place in space. “Once,” the first part is called, and like fairy tales, the sections that follow, encompassing essays, stories, and passages of plainspoken poetry, echo that initial once, as Berger contemplates the ways in which death and love and sex and life revolve around each other in human existence and find expression in art and work and the observances of daily life.

    Part two, called “Here,” investigates the idea of home in a world where capitalism has rendered everyone homeless, not only the countless people who, over the last two centuries and ever more now, have been driven by need to leave their native ground for strange cities and suburbs and slums, but also the well-to-do and the rich, content to exchange the reality of home for the fungibility of property. Against such backgrounds, Berger considers the role of storytelling and the power of poetry and painting, and above all—because a letter addressed to the absent beloved resonates throughout the pages of this book—is the renewing and unsettling persistence of love and desire.

    Author

    John Berger (1926–2017) was a novelist, painter, poet, and one of the most influential art critics of the last 75 years. His many books include Ways of Seeing, the Booker Prize–winning novel G, A Fortunate Man, the Into Their Labours trilogy, and From A to X.

    Richard Deming is a poet, essayist, and critic whose work explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, and visual culture. His most recent book is This Exquisite Loneliness. He teaches at Yale University, where he served as the founding director of Creative Writing.
    John Berger View titles by John Berger

    Praise

    "Modest, uncontentious reflections on things personal and epochal—time and timelessness, love, home—by the noted Marxist critic of art and society....Explorations of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Caravaggio overlap with self-inscription." —Kirkus


    “There is great stillness in Berger’s prose. But after a few pages, his statements start to sing and go on singing.” — New Republic


    “An elegant fusion of philosophy, memoir, and poetry.” — Jacob Brogan, The New Yorker


    “[John Berger] radically altered and enlarged my ideas of what a book could be.” — Geoff Dyer, The Guardian


    “[John Berger is] a great prose poet of homesickness, of the yearning to belong. Surging from the immediate and erotic to the historical and social, his vision is as grand as it is drastic” — Peter Schjeldahl, The New York Times

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