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 was named as 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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