A life of glamour and tragedy, set against the
watershed cultural and political movements of
twentieth-century Europe. "Toto" Koopman (1[zasłonięte]908-19) is
a new addition to the set of iconoclastic women whose
biographies intrigue and inspire modern-day readers.
Like her contemporaries Lee Miller or Vita
Sackville-West, Toto lived with an independent spirit
more typical of the men of her generation, moving in the
worlds of fashion, society, art, and politics with an
insouciant ease that would stir both admiration and envy
even today. Sphinxlike and tantalizing, Toto conducted
her life as a game, driven by audacity and style.
Jean-Noel Liaut chases his enigmatic subject through the
many roles and lives she inhabited, both happy and
tragic. Though her beauty, charisma, and taste for the
extraordinary made her an exuberant fixture of Paris
fashion and cafe society, her intelligence and steely
sense of self drove her toward bigger things,
culminating in espionage during WWII, for which she was
imprisoned by the Nazis in Ravensbruck. After the
horrors of the camp, she found solace in Erica Brausen,
the German art dealer who launched the career of Francis
Bacon, and the two women lived out their lives together
surrounded by cultural luminaries like Edmonde
Charles-Roux and Luchino Visconti. But even in her later
decades, Toto remained impossible for anyone to possess.
The Many Lives of Miss K explores the allure of a
freethinking and courageous woman who, fiercely
protective of her independence, was sought after by so
many but ultimately known by very few.
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