Samira Bellil: Dans l'enfer des tournantes | To Hell and Back: the life of Samira Bellil (2002)

Once again, I'm not too happy with the title in translation of a book: why To Hell and Back : the life of Samira Bellil? The original title translates as 'In the hell of gang rape' (in the slang that very much dominates this work), so something like 'Gang Rape Hell' would seem more appropriate to me. Sigh.

And this true account of a horrific life certainly makes the reader sigh. Josée Stoquart assisted with the book at every stage of its writing, and although it's unclear to what extent she changed it, it evidently resounds with Samira Bellil's voice, a voice speaking from hell, in the language of the street, about her life until she was twenty-seven.

Coming from a family in which the mother is initially intimidated, ruled over even, by the father who treats Samira in a terrible fashion, as an adolescent she doesn't really stand much chance in life. At fourteen she is savagely raped by three men who live nearby, and later by the same leader of the gang, K. She is threatened with violent consequences if she goes to the police, and anyway she can't even tell her parents because they wouldn't be sympathetic, they would be ashamed of her. On holiday in Algeria with her mother, Samira was gang raped again.

Her troubles don't end there, and it seems that every step she makes towards a relatively contented existence, she takes two steps back, and the toll this takes on her mental health is bound to be high. However, she can fight back, and positive things happen: she gets successful psychological help, her mother divorces, a judge awards her financial compensation, and she publishes this widely read book in 2002.

Tragically, Samira Bellil died of stomach cancer in 2004 – at the age of thirty-one.

Samira Bellil's grave in Père-Lachaise.