A Hymn to Life

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 * Financial Times *
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 *
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 * Guardian *
Gisèle’s humility and courage elevates A Hymn to Life … 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 – Hadley Freeman * Sunday Times Book of the Week *
Extraordinary … a powerful tale of a mighty woman * Daily Telegraph *
An emblem of resilience for women everywhere * Vogue *
The bravest woman in the world … A powerful and devastating memoir * Daily Mirror *
[A Hymn to Life] is gripping, it is heart-breaking, it is beautifully written – Lulu Garcia-Navarro * New York Times *
Stunning, admirable * Elle *
A Hymn to Life is a reminder of organised 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 * New York Times Book Review *

Gisèle Pelicot was named the most noteworthy person of 2024 in an opinion poll in France, eclipsing world leaders, and was honoured by Time. To mark International Women’s Day, the Independent named her the most influential woman of 2025.

Her case contributed to the national debate on sexual violence in France, which led to a change in the legal definition of rape.

She has been awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civic honour.

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