Henry Miller: The Paris Years (1975. English ed. 2011. e2021)

A New York Times Notable Book

His years in Paris were the making of Henry Miller. He arrived in 1930 with no money, no fixed address, and no prospects. He left nine years later as the renowned—and notorious—author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. 

Miller didn't just live in Paris—he devoured it. It was a world he shared with Brassaï, whose work, first collected in Paris by Night, established him as one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century and the most exquisite and perceptive chronicler of Parisian vice. In Miller, Brassaï found his most compelling subject. 

Henry Miller: The Paris Years is an intimate account of a writer's self-discovery, seen through the unblinking eye of a master photographer. Brassaï delves into Miller's relationships with Anaïs Nin and Lawrence Durrell, as well as his hopelessly tangled though wildly inspiring marriage to June. He uncovers a side of the man scarcely known to the public, and evokes their shared passion for the street life of the City of Light, captured in a dazzling moment of illumination.