Abstract
In this paper I will try to show how photography informs Geoff Dyer’s novel and essay writing, not only by affecting its contents, but mainly by playing a part in the structures and modes of his works, both on the narrative and non-narrative level. Taking the lead from Dyer’s early essay on John Berger, Ways of Telling (1986), I will try to show in what way Berger’s photographic theory shapes Dyer’s most famous novels, The Colour of Memory (1989) and But Beautiful (1991). I will then first follow the steps Dyer trod in perfecting his knowledge of photography up to his producing a substantial and innovative work on the history and criticism of American photography, The Ongoing Moment (2005); then show how, in one of his most recent works, White Sands (2016), he managed to create a form of essay in which his foremost passions, photography and jazz, become an essential feature of the text, just like he did in But Beautiful , yet, this time, without relying on themes and contents.
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