Sunday book pick: An untameable pain in Niege Sinno’s memoir of childhood sexual abuse, ‘Sad Tiger’
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“Innocence. That’s what there is to see, the purest innocence. And perhaps what attracts him is simply the possibility of destroying it.”
How does one talk about a memoir on childhood sex abuse? Is it possible to “rate” such a book on the scale of five? Can one say to have “enjoyed” it? Is it possible to be “moved” by a story so sordid? Can one pity the author who does not want to be pitied? Is it right to call the writer “brave”, who, without choice, had to survive her childhood? What is the right way to read such a memoir? After a point, I stopped trying to understand my relationship with the story – it was not mine; I was a voyeur. My presence was immaterial. The story exists and it will for all of eternity – I was passing it by, I got tangled in it briefly, I could shake myself off and move on. For me, the story ends on the last page. It is not my story, yet, to understand what it was trying to tell me, I had to surrender myself to it.
Descending into an abyss
Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, memoirist extraordinaire, said Niege Sinno’s memoir on childhood sex abuse is...