French woman Gisèle Pelicot, a survivor of mass rapes organised by her husband, reveals her trauma and resilience in her memoirs released on Tuesday in France and translated into more than 22 languages.
Pelicot became a global icon in the fight against sexual violence in 2024 during the trial of her ex-husband Dominique and dozens of strangers who raped her while she was unconscious.
Entitled A Hymn to Life (Et la Joie de Vivre), it was written with French author Judith Perrignon and translated into 22 languages, a testament to the impact her story had on audiences around the world.
It spans Pelicot's 50-year relationship – which she stresses was not a nightmarish ordeal, but life with someone she considered a "great guy".
"Like every couple, we had difficult moments, but we loved each other, I'm sure of that, and we had three children," Pelicot told French magazine Telerama in the first of a series of promotional interviews about the book last week.
She reveals her shock when first called by police in 2020 to talk about her ex-husband and recounts her horror as she examines photographs of herself being raped under the influence of sedatives he administered to her.
"I didn't recognise the men. Or this woman. Her cheek was so flabby. Her mouth so limp. She was like a rag doll," writes the 73-year-old, according to the French-language version.
A woman of her generation
A Hymn to Life allows Gisèle to speak about herself and her upbringing. Born in Germany into a modest family in 1952, Gisèle Guillou spent her childhood in the Indre region, marked by the death of her mother from cancer when she was only 9 years old.
Her father, a soldier devastated by the death of his wife, remarried but Gisèle grew up in the presence of a nasty and controlling step-mother.
Her way of breaking free was to get married - and she found a soulmate in Dominique, who had also had a difficult childhood.
But she admits she was clearly a "woman of her generation," a woman born after the war, whose lifestyle seems very far removed from today's society.
"I was that woman who puts a man's satisfaction before her own," she writes in the book.
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She also describes the choice she made to have an open trial, rather than one behind closed doors - a courageous step, but one she felt was necessary.
"When I think back to the moment I made my decision, I realise that if I had been 20 years younger, I might not have dared to refuse a closed session," she wrote, according to an extract.
"I would have been afraid of the stares, those damned stares that a woman of my generation has always had to deal with," she added.
She puts her personal strength down to female role models like her grandmother and mother and writing the book was her way of bearing witness and "addressing all those who supported me."
"It seems to me that we do not suspect the strength we have inside us until we are forced to draw on it, and that is also what I would like to say to victims," she says.
Believe in a brighter future
Gisèle says she hopes to inspire other rape victims to believe in a brighter future – and to change attitudes along the way.
Her ordeal has even lead to a change in French rape laws and a public reckoning with the problem of drugging women.
As for Dominique Pelicot – Gisèle says in the book that she would like to organise to visit her ex-husband in prison where he will stay for the next 20 years.
"That visit would be a stage in my reconstruction, an opportunity to confront him face to face," she told French news agency AFP.
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"How could he have put our entire family through hell? He may not answer my questions, but I need to ask them."
A Hymn to Life is the indeed the new chapter in Gisèle's life in which she describes herself as a "happy woman", having found love again in a new relationship and settling on the French Atlantic island of Ile de Re.
"Despite all these ordeals, even in the darkest periods, I have always sought flashes of joy; I am looking towards the future, towards joy. I know this may surprise some who expect to see me in tatters, but I am determined to remain standing and dignified," she told AFP.
(with newswires)
