Freund, Gisele. The World in My Camera by Gisele Freund.

Translated by June Guicharnaud. Dial Press, 1974. 1st U.S. edition. [Autobiography of the photographer with many illustrations of black-and-white photographs of France, Mexico, Tierra del Fuego, and other places, and portraits in color and black-and-white of artists, writers, and others, such as Marcel Duchamp, Andre Malraux, Pierre Bonnard, Colette, Andre Gide, James Joyce, Henri Matisse, Francois Mauriac, Henry Miller, Eva Peron, Romain Roland, Victoria Sackville-West, Diego Rivera, Jean-Paul Sartre, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Virginia Woolf.] Ex-library, VG with edge wear, no label on dust jacket which has a chip at the top of spine. 259 pages. Summary:

The World in My Camera (originally published in French as Le monde et ma caméra in 1970; English translation published in 1974 by Dial Press) is an autobiographical memoir and photographic collection by German-born French photographer and photojournalist Gisèle Freund.

Key Details & Summary

• Scope & Narrative: The book details Freund's career, beginning with her flight from Nazi Germany in 1933 with negatives smuggled across the border, through her exile and documentary projects across Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

• Literary & Artistic Portraits: It features her famous portrait work capturing 20th-century intellectual icons, writers, and artists—including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, André Gide, Colette, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Frida Kahlo—often accompanied by personal anecdotes about her sessions with them.

• Pioneering Photojournalism: The memoir recounts her assignments for major mid-century publications like Life, Time, and Picture Post, detailing notable events such as her 1930s photojournalism on Depression-era England and her controversial 1950 photo essay on Eva and Juan Perón in Argentina.

• Technological & Social Commentary: Freund reflects on her early adoption of 35mm color film for portraiture, as well as her socio-historical insights on the role, power, and ethics of photography in modern media.