The Hindu Lit for Life 2026 | In conversation with author Neige Sinno

Was this your first attempt at writing about the experience?

It was not exactly my first attempt, because I have always been interested in power relationships, violence, sexual abuse, and relationships between people and their families. What was new was the autobiographical angle. I have never written before about something that has happened to me. And it is something I did not want to do for many reasons. One obvious reason was the shame related to the topic; the shame that society puts on the victim.

I think it would have been easier for me to use this material for a work of fiction. Not exactly easier, but a way of avoiding this shame. But it was hard for me to separate the artistic making of the work from the emotional weight of the subject. The boundary becomes blurry when you are working on autobiographical material, especially when it is painful.

At some point, the project came out in my day-to-day writing routine. I wrote those first pages and I kept them in a file on my computer. One day, I reread those pages, and I could see the whole book.

You write: “The taboo in our culture is not rape itself, which is commonplace everywhere; it is talking about it, thinking about it, analysing it.” Did that idea shape how you approached the book, as a way of breaking that taboo?

At some level, yes. But there is always a level of irony and paradox in the book.

Lots of people have tried to talk about this subject and there are good reasons why we can’t talk and should not talk about this in society. I was always torn between this desire to break the rules and the knowledge that it’s not going to happen — no one can break rules.

I am simply saying out aloud what everyone knows, but doesn’t really want to face. What was really interesting for me in the writing process is that I had a feeling that I wanted to open a door and allow myself to think about child sexual abuse. When you make the first step to open that door, you realise it’s not as difficult as you thought it was. It all comes like a logical sequence.

People often ask why survivors did not speak sooner. From your perspective, especially in cases of child abuse, what do you wish people understood about survivors staying silent and about delayed disclosures?

Even though I spoke about it quite early, when I was 14-15, I still wonder why I did not speak before that. One hypothesis is that this is now trauma works. When you are a victim of trauma, there is a lot of fear that you are going to get killed by the person who raped you. For children, it feels dangerous to speak. You’re scared that the world as you know it is going to disappear. You’re also scared that if you speak and nothing happens, that will be horrible as well. There is also the question of shame — you are taught from childhood that people who speak about these subjects are made outcasts. Also, as a victim of trauma, you’re never completely sure of whether what you have been through is even real. The aggressor is probably going to deny all of it and you wonder whether people will people trust your word.

You write in the beginning that your stepfather’s actions are “beyond comprehension.” When you draw a portrait of him, you point to one or two worrying signs — his temper, for instance. But he largely appears as an ordinary man. Did his actions always remain beyond comprehension, or did the process of writing bring any clarity?

Yes and no. From the beginning, I say I know I am not going to understand; I am not going to come to terms with this story. But some concepts that I was reading about in a more theoretical way in feminist literature did become more clear to me. I had this clarity of my own story being related to the larger structural problem of the distribution of power in the family, at the workplace, and in society.

You also explore in detail existing literature on sexual abuse: masterpieces by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, and others. You seem to have contradictory feelings about reading such literature. You write, “I experienced a kind of jubilation that I’ve made it through a moment in the book that I think I probably understand better than anyone.” But you also write elsewhere: “Literature did not save me. I am not saved.” So, what did reading and writing about literature on this subject do for you? 

As you said, I have mixed feeling about literature about abuse. I’ve talked about this with other writers who have had similar experiences. And they say that they also have rushes, these moments of documenting themselves obsessively. And at other moments, they feel overwhelmed by the pain and the intensity and the weirdness of this obsession, because there is something strange and morbid in watching and gathering information about something that actually has no end.

What I meant when I said that literature didn’t save me is that my writing is not the only therapeutic way of saving myself. I’m not doing this only for myself.

But of course, literature is very important in my life. Literature and reading have helped me in a general sense as a human being. They have opened so many doors for me; I can’t even imagine my life without books. But literature for me is not a way of getting away from the childhood trauma.

You draw on memory, and memory is a tricky thing: it is non-linear, fragmented, and it can also change. When writing from memory about trauma, what felt challenging to represent honestly and what felt important to protect for yourself and for the reader?

It was a question of finding a balance. I wanted the book to be short enough to be read and I wanted to offer my reader a reading that was not interrupted too much. There was the process of choosing information interesting enough, but also having moments that slowed down the book. I didn’t want a rape scene that was too intense for the reader; I wanted some moments of rest, so I had literary analysis in between, which are less demanding of the reader than my own story. 

Of course, I did not include some memories because I wanted to protect myself and my brothers and sisters. Autobiographical writing is not only about yourself. The close family is in the book and I had to do this in a respectful way. It wasn’t easy. 

Traumatic memories don’t work like other memories. When you start to doubt them, the nature of the doubt is not the same. You know the rape happened, but something in you completely denies the fact. I wanted to show the reader this; they can see this person fighting with their memory and trying to come to terms with all those contradictions.