Gisele Pelicot has published a memoir that revisits the mass-rape case which made her an international emblem in the fight against sexual violence and helped drive changes to France's rape legislation. In the book, titled A Hymn to Life and released on Tuesday, Pelicot, who is 73, recounts the discovery of years of abuse and explains why she decided to forgo the anonymity often afforded to victims.
Pelicot writes that she waived her right to anonymity because she felt it was important for people to see the faces of those involved in the trial and to confront the reality of the crime. In her words:
"No one would ever know what they had done to me... No one beyond those involved in the trial would see their faces, look them up and down and wonder how to pick out the rapists among their neighbours and colleagues."
The memoir details how authorities first approached the matter with questions that surprised her. Pelicot recounts police asking whether she and her then-husband were swingers; when she denied that, she was shown images of herself, unconscious in bed with men she did not know. She quotes an officer telling her a number:
a moment she describes as the point when the scale of the assaults became clear."He tells me fifty-three men had come to my house to rape me,"
She recalls returning home after that revelation and performing an ordinary, intimate task - hanging out her husband's washing - a gesture she compares to unconditional waiting:
she writes."I was like a dog waiting by the garden gate for its master,"
Pelicot addresses the difficulty of informing friends and family about what had happened, and describes particular concern for her children. She writes that she was conscious of the ordeal her daughter Caroline would face:
"I was aware that my daughter Caroline was about to 'go through hell and back.'"
In the criminal proceedings that followed, Pelicot's now ex-husband was convicted in connection with the case. In addition to his conviction, 50 men were found guilty of raping Pelicot while she was unconscious. The trial drew widespread attention and contributed to a revision of rape law in France.
Pelicot explains in the memoir how she sustained herself through the trial in part by reading the letters she received from women abroad and from those who waited outside the courtroom. She describes receiving a bundle of correspondence at the end of each day and choosing those letters over newspapers because they "gave me the chance to listen to women's voices." She also notes how the presence of women outside the courtroom eased her experience of the proceedings:
"How could I tell the women ... that their presence outside the courtroom eased for me what was happening inside."
Although Pelicot did not address her ex-husband directly at trial, she writes that she intends to visit him in prison to seek answers. The memoir sets out a series of questions she plans to ask, reflecting the need for personal explanations:
"Did you ever think, 'I must stop'? Did you abuse our daughter? Did you commit the most abject crime of all? Do you have any idea of the hell we're living in? ... Did you kill? ... I'll ask him all these questions. I need answers; he owes me that much."
Alongside the account of the legal process and its aftermath, Pelicot relates a personal turn toward renewal. She describes meeting a man through mutual friends and how the evening she met him left her "light-headed with happiness." She writes that she felt a need to love again and that she was no longer afraid. Reflecting on the role of trust in her recovery, she states:
"I still have faith in people. Once, that was my greatest weakness. Now it is my strength. My revenge."
Context and significance
Pelicot's memoir reopens public attention on a case that prompted legal reform and drew international scrutiny. The book combines detailed recollections of discovery and trial with passages that chart personal healing, underscoring how public testimony and private correspondence intersected for the survivor.