A Hymn to Life
Shame has to change sides
The extraordinarily powerful memoir by a heroine of our times, whose story inspires change, compassion and courage.
One November day, Gisèle Pelicot was called to a local police station and life as she knew it ended. Her husband of fifty years had been caught by a supermarket guard filming up women’s skirts. But on his computer was shattering evidence: for nearly a decade, he had been secretly drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of strangers into their home to abuse her.
Four years later, he and fifty other men were put on trial and Gisèle’s courage in waiving her right to anonymity made global headlines. ‘Shame must change sides,’ she declared, giving voice and hope to millions. Her words became a rallying cry and her decision marked a turning point in public feeling about sexual violence.
For the first time, and with unwavering honesty and grace, she describes a difficult childhood, first love, her career and motherhood. It is a life in determined search of happiness, both before and after her devastating discovery. She is an ordinary person who faces extraordinary catastrophe, whose example changes the world.
A Hymn to Life is an unforgettable testament and a promise. Its message is one of defiance and renewal – that victims have no reason to feel ashamed; that even after unimaginable betrayal we can go on; that the colour can come back to life. Ultimately, Gisèle Pelicot emerges with a renewed passion and reverence for living, and for love.
Reviews
“An extraordinary memoir that inspires courage and compassion, but also crucially demands change … A Hymn to Life is truly a gift to every woman in the world, and we should thank her for her courage with all our hearts.”
- Emma Thompson
“The only writing you should read about Gisèle’s story is her own. If you want a page-turning memoir by a lifeforce, buy it for everyone you know. It may move you to tears, but it will move you to live more.”
- Gina Martin
“[Madame Pelicot has] inspired women across the globe… and created a powerful legacy that will change the narrative around shame, forever.”
- Queen Camilla
“A Hymn to Life is quite something – a really brave, honest and heart-rending memoir.”
- Sarah Jessica Parker
“Gisèle has challenged the patriarchy everywhere … She is a symbol of strength and survival.”
- Gloria Steinem
“A unique memoir by a figure of astonishing power …alive with the kind of detail that wouldn’t look out of place in a good novel (…).
Pelicot’s riveting account of her ordeal refuses to conform to any agenda but her own.”
“ [A Hymn to Life] is gripping, it is heartbreaking, it is beautifully written.”
- Lulu Garcia-Navarro, New York Times
“With matter-of-fact precision A Hymn to Life powerfully chronicles the shock of discovering her husband’s sex crimes, and the rallying cry that followed.”
- New York Times
“A lucid, unsentimental memoir that reclaims a life too often reduced to a headline. (…) Proof that one can become a global icon without submitting one’s life to a convenient scalpel. (…) Told without bravado or self-pity, this is a book of rare dignity and quiet force. (…) A profoundly moving testimony – precise, restrained, and ultimately life-affirming.”
- Le Monde
“Extraordinary … vibrates with necessity … A Hymn to Life is novelistic and resounds with grace. The language is precise and vivid; the story reverberates with echoes and patterns … an extraordinary achievement … There is beauty, love, hope. And there is rage, loss and fear of the void beneath her feet … Many could be enriched by this alertly human account of 70 years of life. Here is a perspective that is full, candid and instructive.”
“Extraordinarily courageous … what makes it so compelling is that it shows what happens when an atomic bomb of cruelty erupts within a seemingly normal family … Her modest humility makes her courage all the more impressive.”
- The Times of London
“[A Hymn to Life] is a lyrical book about monstrous events, a compelling exploration of what it feels like to hold two existences in your brain at once.”
- Monica Messe, The Washington Post
“A Hymn to Life is an astonishing book—unflinchingly honest, open to self-interrogation, evocative, determined . . . Pelicot’s honesty is breathtaking, and it helps make A Hymn to Life all the more revelatory as a sociological document.”
- Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic
“A work of sophisticated integration: Pelicot shifts between the ongoing investigation and her memories of childhood, youth, and married life. The two tracks regularly converge as she pauses to consider a distant memory in light of her new knowledge. Pelicot’s account of the marriage must inevitably be a story about her own misjudgment. She takes possession of this devastating central fact with calm authority, her narrative voice a fitting counterpart to her much-noted composure at the trial. ‘Beyond the pain of the revelations and the shame of my body being turned into a sack,’ she writes, ‘there was also the shame of having understood nothing.'”
- Elaine Blair, The New York Review of Books
“Searing, unforgettable, and strangely beautiful . . . A Hymn to Life challenges preconceived notions of ‘appropriate’ responses to both sexual violence and disbelief. It tells the story of how a woman held two opposing truths in her hands—the peaceful existence she led by day and the horrifying violence she was unknowingly subjected to by night—in order to piece her shattered life back together in the face of one of the most heinous sexual-abuse cases in modern history.”
- Helen Schulman, Air Mail
“Stunning, admirable.”
- Elle
“It’s a grand book. Much more than a memoir, it’s a beautifully written book that grabs you by the gut and draws you in. It draws us all in.”
- La Grande Librairie
“An emblem of resilience for women everywhere.”
- Vogue UK
“The bravest woman in the world.”
- Daily Mirror
“Un texte subtil et émouvant sur la vie d’une femme qui croit encore au bonheur.”
- Les Inrocks
“Extraordinary … a powerful tale of a mighty woman.”
“A deeply moving and courageous memoir … Her story offers hope, solace, and a necessary contribution to reshaping discussions of abuse and justice.”
- Women & Home
“An intimate, deeply moving and vivid account in which Gisèle Pelicot recounts a life marked by sorrow yet sustained by an unshakeable desire for happiness.”
- Télérama
“An important, powerful book where every word counts.”
- Laurent Delahousse, France 2
“A deeply personal story of striking emotional power.”
- La Matinale, France Inter
“In a text of great generosity, Gisèle Pelicot and Judith Perrignon break down every barrier, even the most taboo. Gisèle fulfils her mission of being the “little soldier of happiness.” A vital role.”
- Libération
“A tiny light in the darkness of rape… Women’s solidarity is the salvation in this immensely powerful memoir by Gisèle Pelicot.”
- Mari Grydeland, Aftenposten (Norway)
“A literary battle cry! Gisèle Pelicot writes with crystal clarity and without sentimentality about the boundless abuses that shook the entire world. (…) an immensely brave and important book that shows the complex relationship between victim and perpetrator.”
- Ellen Sofie Lauritzen, NRK (dice roll 6)
“A tour de force book about sexual abuse. Gisèle Pelicot has written about the nightmare of her life in a way that manages to uplift the reader. One can only bow in reverence… Reading about all these abuses… can one bear it? Yet a story, reflections, and thoughts are brought forward so that you are simply carried along, devouring the pages.”
- Guri Hjeltnes, VG (dice roll 6)
“Immensely powerful and harrowing reading.”
- Inger Bentzerud, Dagbladet
“A Hymn to Life—what a title. Gisèle Pelicot’s hymn is not triumphal, but reflective and steadfast.”
- Susanne Billig, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
“A book that truly answers every question one could possibly have, leaving nothing out and glossing over nothing. It is surprisingly candid, yet not bluntly intimate—an admirable book, well worth reading.”
- Johanna Adorján, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
“Her book is neither a settling of accounts nor a heroine’s tale. It is the moving reckoning of a woman who found within herself the strength to overcome shame, to demand justice, and to reinvent herself from the ruins of her life.”
- Julia Borutta, Tagesschau
“Her tone: gentle and strong. This tone is echoed in the book she co-wrote with the journalist Judith Perrignon. Added to that are lightness and a zest for life. Not by chance is the book titled A Hymn to Life.”
- Danja Nüesch, SRF
“This book sets a life lived against the ambiguity and inexplicability of the case… In it, we read the story of a victim who has fought to reclaim her life.”
- Katharina Teutsch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
“Combative and full of life, Gisèle Pelicot remains (…) a woman who refuses to be reduced to the role of a victim.”
- ORF (Austrian television)
“Making what happened tangible is not easy, yet Gisèle Pelicot manages to put all that unspeakable into words, often in poetic language.”
- Valérie Catil, taz
“An extremely powerful book that deeply moves the reader. A truly beautiful book you can’t put down, and one that is essential for understanding male and macho violence.”
- Les Inrocks