A hymn to life

"In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity in her legal fight against her ex-husband and the fifty men accused of sexually assaulting her, a courageous decision that inspired millions of people around the world. Only four years prior, [she] had made the shattering discovery that her partner, Dominique Pelicot, had been secretly drugging and raping her, and inviting strangers to also abuse her in their home for nearly a decade. 'Shame must change sides,' Gisèle bravely declared at the opening of the trial in Avignon, France, and the dictum soon became an international rallying cry to radically transform public sentiment and legislation surrounding cases of sexual violence. Beginning in 2020, when she received the first phone call from a local police station, Gisèle recounts the fateful investigation that turned her life inside out. She retraces the steps of a life built over the course of five decades, the final decade of her marriage and its hidden abuse, and the long path of emotional healing that ensues. Part memoir, part act of defiance, A Hymn to Life is a story of survival, testimony, and courage, and a portrait of a woman who broke her silence, reclaimed her voice, and forced a reckoning." --