‘The anger became bigger than shame’: the writer whose memoir of child abuse has taken France by storm

As Neige Sinno’s critically acclaimed memoir about being sexually abused by her stepfather is published in English, she reveals how writing her story has helped set her free

When it came out in France, Neige Sinno’s heart-stopping Sad Tiger, which pieces together in fragments the lifelong impact of the sexual abuse of a girl in the French Alps by her mountain guide stepfather, blew the literary world apart. Its experimental form of creative nonfiction – a memoir that ditches linear narrative, yet races along like a thriller – was hailed as groundbreaking, the book an instant classic. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies, won a swathe of prizes and became one of the most borrowed books in libraries across France when it was published in 2023. The Nobel prize-winning French author Annie Ernaux was so impressed that she made a public appearance in conversation with Sinno, saying: “Reading Sad Tiger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it.”

Now published in English, Sad Tiger – the title is a reference to William Blake’s poem The Tyger – veers between the little girl’s memories of her stepfather blasting French rocker Johnny Hallyday from a cassette player as the hippy family restores a house in an Alpine village, and his attacks on her, during a period when he is scratching a living taking on part-time jobs. Sinno combines the inner world of an abuse survivor with a portrait of life in the French mountains. The book is also a study in society’s denial. The stepfather eventually faces trial, serves a prison sentence, remarries and has four more children after his release.