[1][2][3] The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to HIV/AIDS.
Guibert was born in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, to a middle-class family and spent his early years in Paris, moving to La Rochelle from 1970 to 1973.
In June the following year, he married Christine, the partner of Thierry Jouno, so that his royalty income would eventually pass to her and her two children.
He tells of how life with the virus became an existential adventure, how it affected a generation, how it stole his friends and lovers, and how writing was for him a bulwark against death and destruction.
"[7]Upon publication, Guibert immediately found himself the focus of media attention, featured in newspapers and appearing on several television talk shows, including Apostrophes, a literary program with a wide audience.
According to scholar Ross Chambers, the title (which can be roughly translated as "decorum or indecorum") refers to questions of how to present the realities of illness and death to an audience "readily shocked by what it does not wish to know about".