Consent: A Memoir

 
　　他是50歲法國著名大文豪，而14歲的她是他現實生活中的繆思女神。她無法預見這層關係將綑綁她的身心，甚至危害生命。
 
　　30多年過後，在近年全球#MeToo運動風起雲湧之際，上述經歷的受害者絲普琳歐拉（Vanessa Springora）決定以這本回憶錄控訴現年84歲、法國文學獎得主馬茲涅夫（Gabriel Matzneff）誘姦她的始末。
 
　　書中描述馬茲涅夫晚宴中初次邂逅13歲的絲普琳歐拉後，就視她為獵物：情書攻勢、在街上尾隨她，甚至到學校留守等她，只為了侵犯她的身體。
　　
　　隨著絲普琳歐拉年紀增長，成為知名出版社社長的她反思這段扭轉她人生的過去，書中揉合絲普琳歐拉生命故事、童話、法國歷史，重新檢視女性創傷修復時產生的力量。她以最誠實的筆觸於本書揭穿文學界長期縱容助長的性別不平等，以及對孩童的剝削和性虐待，並探討在一段關係中，愛與同意的真義。
 
　　本書在法國引起軒然大波，因為馬茲涅夫數十年來公開書寫戀童癖，甚至多次在法國媒體、官方網站上直言不諱提到自己跟未成年孩童的關係，1995年出版的書中也描述了自己與絲普琳歐拉的過往。馬茲涅夫甚至在2013年獲得國家最高榮譽文學獎，法國政府授予他獎牌和年度津貼。
 
　　然而隨著本書影響力在法國持續發酵，馬茲涅夫迅速成為眾矢之的，並成為檢察官調查對象。許多曾力挺他的名人如時尚大師聖羅蘭（Yves Saint Laurent）也因此受到矚目。與馬茲涅夫交情甚篤的政治人物吉拉爾（Christophe Girard）則在輿論壓力下於2020年7月辭任巴黎副市長。
 
　　絲普琳歐拉，以及其他當時深受其害的少女，她們被竊取的青春再也無法追回，這部作品成為震撼人心的一擊，粉碎長久以來法國社會的沉默，讓人們正視在所謂的浪漫文化之下，被「魅力」所美化的性犯罪。(文/博客來編譯)
 
各界強力推薦
 
　　「一名女性以猛烈言詞奪回她故事的話語權。推薦閱讀！」---美國知名期刊Library Journal
 
　　「一個驚悚的虐童事件揭示世故巴黎人的集體漠視。作者深具洞察力且筆觸優美。」---美國指標書評雜誌Kirkus Reviews
 
　　「作者開誠布公言述她14歲遭受50歲作家性侵的過程，文字令人不寒而慄且後勁很強！」---美國出版新聞周刊Publishers Weekly
 
　　「作者透過鏗鏘有力的文字，回溯自身遭性侵的經歷。」---美國圖書館協會的出版物Booklist

＂Consent＂ is a Molotov cocktail, flung at the face of the French establishment, a work of dazzling, highly controlled fury...By every conceivable metric, her book is a triumph.＂ -- The New York Times

Already an international literary sensation, an intimate and powerful memoir of a young French teenage girl’s relationship with a famous, much older male writer--a universal #MeToo story of power, manipulation, trauma, recovery, and resiliency that exposes the hypocrisy of a culture that has allowed the sexual abuse of minors to occur unchecked.

Sometimes, all it takes is a single voice to shatter the silence of complicity.

Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora was the teenage muse of one of the country’s most celebrated writers, a footnote in the narrative of a very influential man in the French literary world.

At the end of 2019, as women around the world began to speak out, Vanessa, now in her forties and the director of one of France’s leading publishing houses, decided to reclaim her own story, offering her perspective of those events sharply known.

Consent is the story of one precocious young girl’s stolen adolescence. Devastating in its honesty, Vanessa’s painstakingly memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a thirteen-year-old girl to become involved with a fifty-year-old man who happened to be a notable writer. As she recalls the events of her childhood and her seduction by one of her country’s most notable writers, Vanessa reflects on the ways in which this disturbing relationship changed and affected her as she grew older.

Drawing parallels between children’s fairy tales and French history and her personal life, Vanessa offers an intimate and absorbing look at the meaning of love and consent and the toll of trauma and the power of healing in women’s lives. Ultimately, she offers a forceful indictment of a chauvinistic literary world that has for too long accepted and helped perpetuate gender inequality and the exploitation and sexual abuse of children.

Translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer

＂...One of the belated truths that emerges from [Consent] is that Springora is a writer. [...]Her sentences gleam like metal; each chapter snaps shut with the clean brutality of a latch.＂ -- The New Yorker

＂Consent [is] rapier-sharp, written with restraint, elegance and brevity.＂ -- The Times (London)

＂[Consent] has something steely in its heart, and it departs from the typical American memoir of childhood abuse in exhilarating ways.＂ -- Slate

＂Lucid and nuanced...[Consent] will speak to trauma survivors everywhere.＂ -- Los Angeles Review of Books

＂A piercing memoir about the sexually abusive relationship she endured at age 14 with a 50-year-old writer...This chilling account will linger with readers long after the last page is turned.＂ -- Publishers Weekly

＂Springora’s lucid account is a commanding discussion of sexual abuse and victimization, and a powerful act of reclamation.＂ -- Booklist

＂A chilling story of child abuse and the sophisticated Parisians who looked the other way...[Springora] is an elegant and perceptive writer.＂ -- Kirkus