A multi-voiced account of the life of Guy de Cointet (1934-1983), both documented and fictionalized.
A chance encounter in a library is enough to make a young art history researcher the heroine of an adventure novel. Embarked in the memories of a lady from another age, she finds herself following the trail of one of her old acquaintances: an enigmatic author of works hiding encrypted messages, Guy de Cointet is the artist whose peculiar trajectory will lead the investigation to continue on both sides of the Atlantic. Poorly sheltered under a false identity, the narrator becomes absorbed in the life of this stranger through an epic personal and intellectual adventure.
A New Life is the multi-voiced account, as documented as it is fictionalized, of the life of Guy de Cointet. The latter, for twenty years since his name resurfaced in the art world, fascinates with the beauty and the humor of his work, a strange combination of theater, drawing, literature and cryptography. Enriched by the reading of the artist's unpublished notebooks and by numerous interviews with those who knew him, this essay renews the interpretation of his work and tells how a young Frenchman in the 20th century becomes an artist and finds his way far from what he had imagined.
A New Life is the first book by Marilou Thiébault.
Independent curator and artistic director born in 1992, Marilou Thiébault works with artists and produces artistic projects internationally. She has been conducting long-term research on
Guy de Cointet since 2015 and a Master's thesis at the École du Louvre in Paris. She was a co-editor of the book
Guy de Cointet: The Complete Plays (Paraguay, Paris, 2017).
