Karyn Freedman is delighted her book has made it to Canada Reads’ long list of must-read books for the 2017 competition but it’s not for the personal recognition, she said.
The University of Guelph philosophy professor hopes the boost to her book One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery will put it in the hands of rape victims, the professionals who serve them, and friends and family who want to help them.
“I also wrote it for political reasons,” Freedman said in a phone interview from her home in Toronto. “Violence against women doesn’t usually get talked about and that obscures how common it is. It also keeps us from seeing and understanding patterns of behaviour. It allows society to believe these are one-offs instead of systemic crimes against women.”
The book is a narrative non-fiction that begins on August 1, 1990, when a younger Freedman was travelling through Europe and stayed in Paris with a friend of a friend. She found herself alone in the apartment with a stranger, “and over the course of an hour, he raped me,” Freedman said. “That one hour in Paris changed my life.”
Freedman said the rapist was caught and sentenced to jail. The book also talks about her decade-long experience of trying to bury the experience, of the therapy that helped her, and of her travel to Africa where she volunteered in a rape clinic in Botswana.
Her research and the positive response to the book by other rape survivors, underscores to Freedman how violence against women is widespread and crosses all national and cultural boundaries. And how debilitating the impact can be on victims.
“I had good support. I had a good income and received good therapy. In that respect I was lucky,” she said. “I feel pretty good these days. I felt it was my duty to share what I learned with others.”
Canada Reads is an annual literary competition to determine the book, written by a Canadian author, that raises issues Canadians should be talking about.
Celebrity panellists defend their choice in a debate aired on CBC radio.
CBC released the 15 long list on Monday and the final five will be announced Jan. 31, 2017. The contest takes place March 27 to 30.
“It’s exciting for the book to make the long list,” Freedman said. “Violence against women is certainly in the news and we do need to be talking about it. It’s fabulous that Canada Reads has long-listed the book.”
Last year U of G’s Lawrence Hill won for his book The Illegal.
