Pauline Hillier

Les contemplées

The Contemplated

February 9, 2023
Autobiographical Novel
204 pages
18,90 €
9782358879415
978-2-3588-7941-5
																Pauline Hillier, Les contemplées
																Pauline Hillier, Les contemplées

2013, Tunis. After a demonstration, Pauline, a young French woman, is arrested and taken to La Manouba, the women’s prison. Within its walls, it is another time, a different world order, with rules that are revealed to her in a language she barely understands. Consigned to Pavilion D, a cell she shares with twenty-eight women, she has only been able to keep one book with her, Victor Hugo’s Les Contemplations. They are poems to hold on to. But soon, in the margins of this book, Pauline begins to write another story, that of the killers, thieves, and victims of judicial errors who tell her their truths over the course of the day. These are the stories of the women with whom she shares her daily life, who offer her their smiles, and teach her to remain strong and dignified no matter what happens.

Vibrant with humanity, Les Contemplées, a fiery autobiographical novel, provides an incredible portrait of a group of women united against the injustice of men.

Swedish rights sold to Editions J. Förlag, pocketbook rights sold to J’ai lu
The author

Pauline Hillier has been writing since she was a teenager. After studying in the Bordeaux area, she published her first novel, À vivre couché, in 2014 with Onlit Editions. A member of the international movement FEMEN until 2018, she was imprisoned in 2013 in Tunisia following an action taken to demand the release of a Tunisian activist. Her novel Les contemplées was inspired by her time in prison.

Strong points

An autobiographical novel that takes us with its narrator to the heart of the women’s prison in Tunis.

A magnificent text on sisterhood.

A gallery of incredible portraits of women.

February 9, 2023
Autobiographical Novel
204 pages
18,90 €
9782358879415
978-2-3588-7941-5