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A Hymn to Life

Shame Has to Change Sides

Author Gisèle Pelicot

Translated by Natasha Lehrer, Ruth Diver

Hardcover

$32.00 US

Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Press

6.51"W x 9.55"H x 0.86"D | 16 oz | 12 per carton

On sale Feb 17, 2026 | 256 Pages | 9798217181322

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THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A rousing feminist manifesto.” – The New York Times Book Review

“Staggering . . . a lyrical book about monstrous events, a compelling exploration of what it feels like to hold two existences in your brain at once.” – Washington Post

“Deeply vulnerable.” – USA Today

The sexual assault that stunned the world. A courageous woman’s rallying call for shame to "change sides." For the very first time, Gisèle Pelicot tells her story.

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, Gisèle 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. By the time Dominique and the dozens of men accused were found guilty three and a half months later, Gisèle had become a global figure, and her message—that she and other victims of sexual abuse have no reason to feel ashamed—galvanized a movement that triggered protests and demonstrations around the world.

In A Hymn to Life, Gisèle tells her story for the very first time, not as victim, but as witness. 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. With unwavering honesty and devastating grace, 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. As Gisèle transcends the unfathomable traumas of her past, against all odds, she emerges with a renewed sense of passion and reverence for her life. Part memoir, part act of defiance, A Hymn to Life is a moving story of survival, testimony, and courage, and an unforgettable portrait of a woman who broke her silence, reclaimed her voice, and forced a reckoning.

“Gisèle Pelicot’s new memoir, A Hymn to Life, is a reminder of organized narrative’s simple power . . . Replete with details of modest domesticity in modern France, A Hymn to Life is also a rousing feminist manifesto . . . It seeks a proper transfer of shame from sex-crime victims to their perpetrators, and the perpetrators’ enablers.” —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review

“Staggering . . . A lyrical book about monstrous events, a compelling exploration of what it feels like to hold two existences in your brain at once . . . There is only whatever you do to put one foot in front of the other. There is only what it takes to survive.” —Monica Hesse, 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

“It may be tempting to skip Gisèle Pelicot’s account of the case that collapsed her 'simple, little life' and protect yourself from the horrors she endured. Don’t succumb to that impulse. Pelicot presents her story like a well-organized crime novel, detailing the twin tragedies of her life—her mother’s death when Pelicot was 9 and her husband’s 2020 arrest for drugging her and filming dozens of men raping her over the course of 10 years—with a cool focus and unflagging energy . . . Pelicot does not spare the details of the case . . . By attempting to put the unimaginable into measured, precise language, Pelicot reveals a primal need to tell her story as she experienced it, and illustrates a grace in accepting that some contradictions cannot be untangled.” —Julie Kosin, New York Magazine (Book Gossip)

“Deeply vulnerable . . . It's all told from the vantage point of a woman trying to make sense of her life in the face of devastation, sometimes grasping for signs that only hindsight can uncover . . . Yet for all the monstrousness revealed in Pelicot’s story, her steadfast courage and optimism that she will persevere acts as a buoy, reeling the reader back with her own sense of hope for the future when, many times, her retellings of her abusers' cruelty turn unbearable.” —USA Today

"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.” —Air Mail

“The memoir is extraordinary—a deeply moving, oddly beautiful account of her life, her marriage, and, ultimately, the events that forced her to reconsider it all. This book is not a story of victimhood—it is one of triumph. Picking up the pieces of the life she thought she had lived shattered, Pelicot attempts to move on with the pain of the knowledge what has happened to her, determined to hold onto her penchant for joie de vivre. In A Hymn to Life, she reclaims her own voice, resisting the patriarchal system that allows abuse to exist in the first place . . . the ultimate act of defiance.” —LitHub

“A heartrending and courageous account of the ultimate betrayal.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“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. It is an extraordinary achievement to write a book this controlled while confronting complication and contradiction . . . Pelicot recounts a lifetime with all its longing and pain. 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.” —Financial Times

“A Hymn to Life is alive with the kind of detail that wouldn’t look out of place in a good novel, but it’s the expression it gives to something glimpsed at during the trial that makes it so singular; namely, the transformation of Gisèle Pelicot from a self-avowedly ordinary woman, “content with my little life”, into a figure of astonishing power.” —The Guardian

“Stirring . . . What could be a dark and depressing chronicle propels forward with the force of Ms Pelicot’s quiet courage and instinct for self-reflection . . . Ultimately, Ms Pelicot offers a cautiously hopeful message about how people can overcome trauma to forge a new life . . . Her ordeal began with questions—yet it ends with unresolved questions, too. Even the most worthwhile stories do not always offer satisfying answers. But they can provide a memorable and commendable heroine.” —Economist

“This book could easily be a catalogue of horrors, and to some degree it is. But what makes it so compelling is that it shows what happens when an atomic bomb of cruelty erupts within a seemingly normal family. The book’s translators, Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver, have done an excellent job of capturing Pelicot’s tone of determined control and occasional broken anguish as she attempts to understand how the gentle young man she married became one of the world’s most notorious rapists and abusers, without her even noticing.” —The Times (UK)

"In matter-of-fact, defiant prose, [Gisèle Pelicot] insists that the way we talk about rape, and the way men talk about women, matters . . . The memoir is an act of rebellion." —Observer

"A paean to dignity in the face of the unspeakable . . . Gisèle is more of a role model than she knows." —Evening Standard

"A living testament to a woman whose spirit will not be broken . . . Gripping . . . A redoubtable woman with a remarkable mind, who writes throughout with clear-headed, self-possessed precision. She lets the story speak for itself . . . Not a single word is wasted or unnecessary . . . It is this indomitable, insubmissive spirit which makes [Gisèle Pelicot] such a wonder and an inspiration." —Independent

"This is a book of rare dignity and quiet force . . . A profoundly moving testimony – precise, restrained and ultimately life-affirming." —Le Monde

"The figurehead of a worldwide movement . . . A feminist icon . . . Gisèle has proven herself to be someone with the inner strength to rise when faced with adversity." —Sunday Independent

"Gisèle’s story, told movingly in her new memoir A Hymn to Life, delves into betrayal, brutality, family fractures and the long, uncertain path toward healing." —Mirror

"A Hymn to Life is quite something - a really brave, honest and heart-rending memoir." —Sarah Jessica Parker

"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

Gisèle Pelicot was named as the most noteworthy person of 2024 in an opinion poll in France, eclipsing world leaders, and was honored by Time. To mark International Women’s Day, The Independent named her the most influential woman of 2025. She was recently awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest civic honor. View titles by Gisèle Pelicot

One

I always set the table for breakfast the night before. I put out coffee cups, plates, cutlery, napkins, pots of honey and jam. Almost as a way of reaching across the hours of darkness that I fear, of proclaiming the harmony of the day to come. Then all there is to do in the morning is get out the butter, put on the kettle, and wait for the smell of coffee and toast to fill the air. All will be well.

That evening, as usual, I got everything ready. Even Dominique's clothes. Let's call him Dominique. I never used to call him that, I preferred affectionate nicknames - Doumé, Mino - but afterwards I didn't know what to call him any more. I called him Monsieur. Monsieur Pelicot. Now that it is time to tell our story, I have decided to use his first name. I put out a pair of bottle-green corduroy trousers and a pink Lacoste polo shirt the children had given him.

We had to be at the police station the following morning; the appointment was at 9.30. After we woke up, we drank our coffee and listened to the news on RTL. The global Covid pandemic had picked up with a vengeance and another lockdown was in force. I looked up at the sky through the kitchen window facing me. It was going to be a lovely day, so I suggested a long walk after lunch as a way of defying the government's restrictions, and as an antidote to the morning's summons. Dominique sat opposite me and said nothing. I reminded him it was November 2nd; my brother, Michel, would have been sixty-nine today. He sighed and said he didn't like November, it was never a good month, no doubt an allusion to all the bills and notices of unpaid invoices that were about to come in. My ghosts and our money problems hung there between us in the kitchen for a moment. But we had always lived with them. And in a way, they had brought us closer. Dominique went to take a shower while I cleared the table. As we were about to leave, he pulled on a jacket that did not go at all with the outfit I had put together for him. I told him so, and he shrugged. We took my car. He drove us to the Carpentras police station.

Two months earlier, I had been staying with our daughter, Caroline, and her husband, Pierre, outside Paris, looking after my grandson until school started, and we had gone to spend the weekend at their holiday home on the Ile de Ré,
off the Atlantic coast of France. That's where I was when Dominique called me sounding unusually agitated. He stammered something about having lost his mobile, he needed a code to activate the new one he had just bought to replace it, he'd had it sent to my number. I gave him the code, but everything about this usually methodical and organised man seemed suddenly in disarray. When he came to pick me up at the station a few days later he looked gaunt. We got home and he burst into tears. He said he couldn't bear to lose me. I thought immediately of my father's grief when my mother died. Dominique sat beside me, shaking with sobs, and I was unable to console him. I feared he might be ill, that his cancer might have returned to take him away for good.

When Dominique finally confessed to me that the previous week he had done something foolish at the Carpentras branch of the Leclerc supermarket - he'd been caught by a security guard filming under three women's skirts, ended up at the police station and had his phone and computer seized - I was upset but I was also, in a way, almost relieved. It was terrible to think of my husband stalking these women, unbearable to imagine him as an offender, but it could have been so much worse. This was not irreversible. My fears were measured on a different scale: only death really frightened me.

So I told him that we would keep the incident between us; I wouldn't tell the children, so as not to hurt them. And I wasn't about to give up on him, but he absolutely had to apologise to the women he had filmed, and see a therapist. There wouldn't be a next time, because if there was, I would leave. 'I promise you,' he said, 'it won't happen again.' I would never be able to forget what he had done. It was a warning sign - but a warning of what? I had no idea. I just wanted our life to go back to normal. Life resumed in our little yellow house with blue shutters, the backdrop to our life in retirement in the South of France. The pool cover was on. The oleanders had finished blooming. Autumn was drawing near.

In mid-October I had gone up to Paris, this time to look after the children of my son David, who was due to undergo minor surgery. I was always going back and forth whenever I was needed to look after one or another set of grandchildren. The school-holiday schedule became my own. I rushed up to Paris any time there was a problem too. I was Maminou, the travelling grandma. I wasn't afraid of getting old; I knew it was a privilege. Obviously when I was at David's I spent most of the time with my granddaughters. Every morning, Charlize stubbornly refused to wear anything but a tracksuit. Clémence, her twin sister, was always changing outfits and had a penchant for princess dresses. They were nine years old, the age I was when I lost my mother.

I didn't hear the phone ring that morning. I was sitting at the tennis courts. Clémence and I were watching Charlize as she ran after the ball. Her forehand had improved. I saw I had missed a call. Unknown number. I called back a little later. 'Bonjour, were you trying to reach me?' The man introduced himself: 'This is Deputy Sergeant Perret from the Carpentras police. Are you aware that we interviewed your husband a few weeks ago? Do you have any idea what this is about?' Yes, I said, my husband had told me everything. My answer resounded inside me like a quiet victory: transparency and trust were at the heart of our long marriage. And, I added, I had lived with this man for fifty years and he had never yet let me down.

'When will you be back?'

'On October 21st. I can come and see you straight away.'

'No, no. We have too much work to do. Come with your husband on November 2nd.'

And so November 2nd arrived. Dominique had no reason to sob like Papa had when Maman died. 'Don't worry, it's only a formality,' I said to Dominique as we arrived at the police station, a low, unassuming, modern building, yellow like our house, the colour of Provence. We walked in, each masked up with one of those pale-blue rectangles that now covered every mouth on the planet. We had just reported to the reception desk when a man with a crew cut leaned over the balustrade on the first floor of the police station. It was Deputy Sergeant Perret.

'I'll see Monsieur Pelicot first, then Madame afterwards,' he called down. Dominique walked up the staircase in his ill-matching jacket without looking back. A short while later
the police officer reappeared and motioned for me to follow him. I went briskly up the stairs, assuming that I would find Dominique in Perret's office. He wasn't there. The police officer indicated the chair opposite him, far enough away from his desk that I could take off my mask. I immediately apologised profusely for what my husband had done. The man across from me was tall and solidly built, with a strong face above his wide shoulders. He seemed to embody authority, and yet there was something gentle and cautious in the way he talked to me. He asked me to confirm my identity and the date and place of my birth: December 7th 1952 in Villingen, in Germany. Maiden name: Guillou. Parents' names: Yves Guillou and Jeanne Prot. He asked me how Dominique and I first met, and I told him it was at my mother's sister's house in July 1971. It was, I added, a genuine case of love at first sight. He wanted to know how I would describe my husband's character.

'He's kind, attentive. He's a lovely guy. That's why we're still together.'

He asked if we liked to entertain. I replied that we often had friends over. He asked me to describe a typical evening. I said we didn't really have a routine, we weren't that old yet. He asked me what time I went to bed, whether it was at the same time as my husband, whether I took a nap in the afternoon. I was a little taken aback by his questions.

'Are you into swinging?'

I didn't understand any more. I heard myself replying no, never, how ghastly, I heard myself spluttering that swinging was not something I would ever consider. That I couldn't imagine anyone else touching me. That, for me, there needs to be love with sex. He asked me if I thought I knew my husband well, and whether I trusted that he would never hide anything from me. I said yes.

'I am going to show you some photographs and videos that you are not going to like.'

I sensed something rising in his voice - not only embarrassment, but a curious mix of danger and protectiveness. He told me that Dominique had been taken into custody for aggravated rape and for administering toxic substances. I think I burst into tears. I moved towards his desk and put my mask back on. He picked up a photograph and held it out to me. A woman in a suspender belt lying on her side. A Black man behind her, penetrating her.

'That's you in the photograph.'

'No, that's not me.'

I got out my glasses; he got out another photograph. The same woman on her back, a tattooed man alongside her.

'That's you.'

'No.'

I did not recognise those men. Nor that woman. Her cheek was so floppy, her mouth so limp. She looked like a rag doll.

A third photograph. The man had kept his firefighter's sweater on.

I couldn't hear what the police officer was saying. Or rather, I could hear him but it had nothing to do with me. It was like the echo of a faraway voice. 'This is your bedroom. Aren't those your bedside lamps?'

So? That is not me lying lifeless on the bed. It's a photoshopped picture. Made by someone trying to hurt Dominique. Just last night while we were watching the news on television, there was a woman who had been intubated because of Covid, and he'd said how he would hate to see me like that.

The officer says a number. He tells me fifty-three men had come to my house to rape me. I ask for water. My mouth is paralysed. A psychologist comes into the office. A young woman. I don't need her. I am far away, even though we are in the same room. I am secure in my happiness, our happiness. Our fiftieth wedding anniversary is coming up, and the memory of how we met is still clear in my mind. His smile. His shy expression. His long, curly hair falling to his shoulders. His Breton sweater. He was going to love me. My brain shut down in Deputy Sergeant Perret's office.