A Hymn to Life

byGisèle Pelicot, Natasha Lehrer (Translator), Ruth Diver (Translator)

Shame has to Change Sides

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** #1 Sunday Times bestseller **

'An extraordinary achievement ... There is beauty, love and hope' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A unique memoir by a figure of astonishing power' GUARDIAN
'An emblem of resilience for women everywhere' VOGUE

The must-read, globally bestselling memoir of courage and resilience by a heroine of our times

'And yet the feeling persists: love is not dead. I am not dead. I still have faith in people. Once, that was my greatest weakness. Now it is my strength.'

Gisèle Pelicot’s life changed for ever when she discovered that her husband and over fifty other men had drugged and abused her. Four years later, she made history by waiving her right to anonymity and seeing her attackers convicted in court – inspiring a worldwide reckoning with women’s rights and giving strength to millions. This is her story. A Hymn to Life is an empowering testament to how one woman’s refusal to carry shame, and her newfound reverence for life, is changing the world.

'Extraordinary ... Inspires courage and compassion' EMMA THOMPSON
'Remarkable, a book for our age, urgent and so important' INDIA KNIGHT
'Brave, honest, heart-rending' SARAH JESSICA PARKER

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

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*

About Gisèle Pelicot

Gisèle Pelicot is an international symbol of courage in the fight against sexual violence. Her case sparked a global debate on women’s rights and changed the legal definition of rape in France.

In 2024 she was named most noteworthy person in France, and in 2025 she was selected by TIME as a woman of the year and one of the world’s most influential people. She received woman of the year accolades from the BBC, Independent, Financial Times and more, and is the subject of a forthcoming HBO documentary.

Gisèle has been awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civic honour. Her international honours include the Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award, Spain’s Order of Civil Merit, Britain’s Woman of Courage Award, Denmark’s Freedom Prize, and the Equality Now Trailblazer Award.

A Hymn to Life has been translated into 43 languages; on publication it was an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. It was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and won the Prix Babelio for Non-fiction.

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