Je T'Aime: The legendary love story of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg
"Skipping back and forth in time, Je T’Aime takes the listener from the foggy Normandy landscapes where Serge and Jane retreated, to their carefree summers on the coast. En route to superstardom in films and music, we experience their intrigues, triangular relationships and jealous rages, the genius and the self-torture." - BBC Radio Four
Timed to coincide with both Valentine's Day and the 50-year anniversary of the legendary banned song Je t'aime... moi non plus, Véronique Mortaigne's book identifies the pairing of Gainsbourg and Birkin as an expression of the spirit of the age. Retracing their lovestory from their meeting in the aftermath of the devastating breakup with Brigitte Bardot, to their union and the birth of their daughter Charlotte, she reveals how two strong personalities came to bloom, and eventually destroy eachother, under the spotlight. Throughout snippets from their high-profile, glamourous, and Bohemian life, she insists on Birkin's devotion to Gainsbourg and in her belief in the transformative power of love.
Far from being a fairytale encounter between a model and a singer, their relationship also marked the union between the prodigal son of an uprooted, penniless Jewish-Russian family, and the fair daughter of an English aristocratic line. Their complicated family life became untangled with that of some of the most iconic personalities of the 60s and 70s, including Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim, and Jane Fonda - which also allows Mortaigne to explore how public morals and media coverage contributed to both their alienation and their transformation into legends.
Beautifully written, Je t'Aime is nevertheless extremely well-documented, as Mortaigne interviewed Birkin, their friends, family members and colleagues in order to paint a faithful potrait.
"Jane Birkin never wanted to chip away at the image of Serge. So we remained in the dark until now. Today Birkin tells all, there is no longe any risk in doing so. Gainsbourg is an icon, so is she."
Je T'Aime is published by Icon Books and it is translated by Georg Philipp von Pezold.
Véronique Mortaigne was a journalist with Le Monde between 1989 and 2016, where she was the editor for Le Monde diplomatique, before moving to the cultural service where she headed the music department. She currently manages their Musiques actuelles column and has worked on tribal art from Africa, America and Oceania. Today she collaborates with a number of media outlets such as Radio Nova, La Fabrique Culturelle, Vanity Fair.
She wrote a dozen books, including biographies of Cesaria Evora, Manu Chao, et Johnny Halliday.
Georg Philipp von Pezold is a real estate analyst who occasionally translates works in English, French or German.
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