Disturbing account of the author's adolescence in
Seine-Saint-Denis, a Parisian suburb crowded with low-rent
high-rises and misguided youth.Her parents, immigrants from
Algiers, were critical and violent, often punishing Bellil by
throwing her into the streets despite the dangers they knew lurked
there. Neglected and rebellious, she was only 13 when she fell in
with a neighborhood gang, 14 when they gang-raped her. Steeped in
misguided traditions and worried about their reputations, her
family and friends abandoned her and even blamed her for the rape.
When she finally found the courage to break the neighborhood code
of silence and file charges, the police and lawyers assigned to the
case were indifferent and lazy, further instilling in Bellil a
sense of bitter hopelessness. In gritty, vivid language, the author
describes the rage she felt at facing her situation alone, the
numbing relief of drugs, her increasing inability to keep mind and
body whole. "[Acting out] was the only means I had," she writes,
"to vomit up the suffering that suffocated and devoured me so
physically it was as if I were being eaten up by worms." She
suffered epileptic seizures, spent years in shelters, hospitals and
the streets; her home was filled with tension, blame and
alcohol-fueled altercations with her parents. Bellil often dreamed
of the idyllic time she'd spent with a Belgian foster family while
her father was in prison, and memories of that unconditional love
kept her working toward a new life. She eventually found help in
psychotherapy and wrote this memoir as part of her emotional
recovery. Its publication in 2002 put the author at the forefront
of a movement to force French officials to acknowledge and address
the overlooked violence against young women in its squalid
banlieues.A sad but fitting memorial to Bellil, who died of stomach
cancer at age 31 in 2004. (Kirkus Reviews)
Every now and then violence erupts in the "banlieues" of France
allowing the world a glimpse into the grimmest corners of these
multiethnic suburban ghettos. From such a corner comes the story of
Samira Bellil, who by raising her voice and telling her tale broke
the "code of silence" imposed by many in her immigrant community
and the willful ignorance of society at large. In this book, Bellil
describes her life in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis. The
child of Algerian parents, she was fostered by a Belgian family
until the age of five while her father was in prison. Bellil
returned to a violent home and grew up to rebel against an
increasingly repressive environment. Gang-raped at fourteen and
then raped again some years later, she maintained her silence until
she discovered that two friends had shared her fate at the hands of
the same gang.
Against the threat of reprisals, Bellil decided to pursue her
attackers through the French legal system, earning the rejection of
her family and the indifference of her lawyers and the media. "To
Hell and Back" relates her struggle to recover, to create a new
culture of support and compassion, and to offer hope to others who
suffer in silence. Painful and disturbing, Bellil's tale helped
inspire a national debate on women's rights and the multicultural
image of France today.
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