One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery - Softcover

Freedman, Karyn L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1554811953 ISBN 13: 9781554811953

Publisher: Freehand Books, 2014

Synopsis

Winner of the 2015 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

Longlisted for Canada Reads 2017

In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery both personal and global. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, from a trauma centre in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman's book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere.

At once deeply intimate and terrifyingly universal, One Hour in Paris weaves together Freedman's personal experience with the latest philosophical, neuroscientific, and psychological insights into what it means to live in a body that has been traumatized. Using her background as a philosopher, she looks at the history of psychological trauma and draws on recent theories of posttraumatic stress disorder and neuroplasticity to show how recovery from horrific experiences is possible. Through frank discussions of sex and intimacy, she explores the consequences of sexual violence on love and relationships, and she illustrates the steep personal cost of sexual violence and the obstacles faced by individual survivors in its aftermath. Freedman's book is an urgent call to face this fundamental social problem head-on, arguing that we cannot continue to ignore the fact that sexual violence against women is rooted in gender inequalities that exist worldwide―and must be addressed.

One Hour in Paris is essential reading for survivors of sexual violence as well as an invaluable resource for therapists, mental health professionals, and family members and friends of victims.

About this title

About the Author

Karyn L. Freedman lives in Toronto and is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. One Hour in Paris is her first book.

From the Back Cover

Winner of the 2015 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2014

In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. At once deeply intimate and terrifyingly universal, One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery―from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, from a trauma centre in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa.

At a time when as many as one in three women have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman’s book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere. One Hour in Paris is also an urgent call to face the fundamental social problem of sexual violence head-on, arguing that we absolutely must address the fact that sexual violence against women is rooted in gender inequalities that exist worldwide.

Edition details

• Publisher: Freehand Books
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554811953
• ISBN 13: 9781554811953
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196