(P/B) THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

Παρουσίαση

Edith Piaf's life is almost as famous as her work. With the fortieth anniversary of her death currently being celebrated with a major retrospective in Paris, Piaf-mania is at an all-time high. Peter Owen has again acquired the rights to the official autobiography of the singer. Our previous Piaf book, My Life, which is now unavailable, recently completely sold out a second print run.
From her birth (in the Parisian streets, her mother shielded by two gendarmes) to her death (when her husband allegedly drove her corpse from the hospital where she died to her flat, lest her fans think that she had abandoned Paris) her life story was a rags-to-riches tale like no other.
A street singer discovered by the nightclub owner who gave her the stage name Piaf ('sparrow') she rose to become a national heroine. Friends with Charlie Chaplin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Chevalier and Marlene Dietrich, she was also at various times chief suspect for the murder of her mentor, an alcoholic and a drug addict. But she always seemed to embody - and still does - something of the spirit of Paris. Following her death in 1963, 40,000 people descended on Pere Lachaise cemetery for her funeral, and many more around the world remain devotees of her music. (From the publisher)