“Triste tigre” : le récit bouleversant d’une victime d’inceste qui brise le silence

“I don’t want to be fine,” she says, interviewed by AFP during the Correspondances festival in Manosque. And she corrects herself: “I don’t want to do everything necessary to be fine. It’s not that I want to be bad, of course.”

In August, she published “Triste tigre” (POL editions), a narrative that leaves an impact.

The subject is off-putting. Neige Sinno was repeatedly raped by her stepfather, starting from an age she has trouble determining, around six or seven years old, until she was 14. She filed a complaint. Her rapist was sentenced to nine years in prison.

But the strength and originality of the book propelled it into the selection of all the major literary prizes in the fall, including the most prestigious one, the Goncourt.

“What hurt me”

That was not the goal. Neige Sinno, 46, had studied literature extensively and had a bit of practice as well: a collection of short stories, a novel. She was unknown in Paris, having emigrated to Mexico, when she started what would become “Triste tigre,” a project that had been gestating for decades and was birthed in a creative frenzy over the course of a year and a half.

“I’m telling my rape story. My rapes. And my childhood, and everything, but if I only did that, it would be impossible to publish it and assume that people read it,” she explains.

This “confessional narrative,” as her editor calls it, is accompanied by an autobiographical essay and in-depth reflections and inquiries about the origins of intrafamilial sexual violence, the future of its victims, and various themes such as the motives of criminals, memory reconfigurations after trauma, incest in literature, power dynamics between child and adult, etc.

In a time when the publishing industry is fiercely debating self-censorship and the appropriateness of offending the reader’s sensitivities, Neige Sinno relies on her intelligence. So what if, for some, invoking the history of genocides as the ultimate evil and trauma appears inappropriate?

“I’ve removed many things. Everything that made me ashamed. Everything that hurt me, everything that I felt would hurt others too much,” the author specifies.

Attracting confidences

While promoting her book in France, the author, a mother of an 11-year-old girl, experiences the sudden interest of the media and the literary world with an almost joyful detachment. “I observe. It’s all new to me.”

Since she anticipated a bit of what the spectacle of society would do to her, she writes: “I’m afraid that the only thing that will happen to me with this book is being invited to radio shows about incest, where they’ll ask me to summarize in an even simpler language than that of the book what is said in it.”

“I’m proud of my book. But I don’t want to box myself in,” she specifies when asked about literary awards. “A prize like those… I don’t want to be known for that.”

During this festival in Manosque, Jean Giono’s city, at the foot of the Alps where Neige Sinno herself was born, the mostly female audience came to listen to her in solemnity. And she attracted many confidences.

“I’m very, very touched by all the people who come to talk to me. Half of them are relatives of victims, former victims, victims themselves, people who want to talk, but don’t have the opportunity,” she shares. “I will do something with it. I want to.”