Description

He didn't shock by accident.

He burned on purpose.

Serge Gainsbourg was not simply a musician. He was a confrontation.

In Serge Gainsbourg — The Art of Burning Yourself Alive, Julien Peltier delivers a sharp, unsentimental examination of one of the most dangerous figures in modern culture. This is not a nostalgic biography. It is an autopsy of provocation as art.

From wartime exile and inherited shame to the invention of "Gainsbarre," the self-destructive alter ego, this book traces how scandal became strategy, how television became theater, and how excess became language.

Inside:

• The architecture of provocation

• The psychology of artistic self-destruction

• The women who shaped his work and myth

• The scandals that built his legend

• The quiet musical innovations that influenced pop, hip-hop, and electronic music

This book asks:

Can art exist without morality?

Is scandal a form of truth?

What happens when an artist becomes the performance—and refuses to survive it?

Written with precision and restraint, The Art of Burning Yourself Alive exposes the structure beneath the chaos and the intelligence beneath the ruin.

Not a biography.

Not a condemnation.

A confrontation.

Perfect for readers of cultural criticism, music history, and unapologetic artistic lives.