I was disappearing, evaporating, slipping away. A dreadful sensation, like being ripped from the realm of the living, but in slow motion. As though my soul was leaking through the pores of my skin. I began wandering the streets all through the night, searching for a sign. Some proof of life. Around me, the city, misty and otherworldly, was taking on the sepia hues of an old film. If I raised my eyes, the railings of the public garden in front of which I was standing seemed to be moving on their own, turning like a magic lantern, three or four images a second, like eyelids blinking, slowly and regularly. Something inside me was still in revolt. I wanted to scream: Is anybody there?

Vanessa Springora, Consent

Even at the age of fourteen, Springora instinctively understands that her abuser is using language to steal her soul. One day he determines to write her assignment for school, an experience she describes as a "dispossession." Throughout their relationship he takes endless notes in his Moleskine notebooks, and uses them later to turn her, barely disguised, into a character in several novels that are published to some acclaim by the most esteemed Parisian publishing houses. "I was just a character, living on borrowed time, like every other girl who'd come before me. It wouldn't be long before he erased me completely from the pages of his wretched diary. For his readers, it was merely a story, words."

Vanessa Springora tr. Natasha Lehrer, "A Note from the Translator," Consent: A Memoir, EPUB ed., (New York, New York: HarperVia, 2021).

La passion occupe tout mon imaginaire. Je lis, trop tôt, des romans auxquels je ne comprends pas grand-chose, si ce n’est que l’amour fait mal. Pourquoi souhaite-t-on si précocement être dévoré ?

Vanessa Springora, Le Consentement

Le consentement. D’après le livre de Vanessa Springora. 2020. Film de Vanessa Filho. Drame. 2023

Plus tard, avec un peu plus de maturité et de courage, j'opterai pour une stratégie différente : dire toute la vérité, avouer que je me sens comme une poupée sans désir, qui ignore comment fonctionne son propre corps, qui n'a appris qu'une seule chose, être un instrument pour des jeux qui lui sont étrangers. Chaque fois, la révélation se soldera par une rupture. Personne n'aime les jouets cassés.

Vanessa Springora, Le Consentement (Grasset, 2020)

I lacci si allentano, e la giungla lascia il posto a un altro mondo in cui all'improvviso brilla il sole e aspetta solo me per dar inizio alla festa. [...] È la mia redenzione che cerco, non la sua.

Il consenso, Vanessa Springora

Consent: A Memoir

By Vanessa Springora.

Design by Stephen Brayda.

Consent: A Memoir, Vanessa Springora

It happened without warning, almost from one day to the next. I was walking along an empty street, an unsettling question going around and around in my head, a question that had wormed its way into my mind several days earlier that I couldn't shake off: What proof did I have of my existence? Was I even real? In an attempt to figure this out once and for all, I had stopped eating. What was the point of nourishing myself? My body was made of paper, ink flowed through my veins, my organs didn't exist. I was fiction. [...] I began to feel the first flutter of a kind of euphoria replacing my hunger. A lightness I had never felt before. I was no longer walking; now I was gliding along the ground, and if I'd flapped my arms, I would surely have flown away.

Vanessa Springora, Consent

Physical violence leaves a memory for a person to react against. It's appalling, but tangible. Sexual abuse, on the other hand, is insidious and perverse, and the victim might be barely aware it is happening. No one speaks of "sexual abuse" between adults. Of the abuse of the vulnerable, yes, of an elderly person, for example. Vulnerability is precisely that infinitesimal space into which people with the psychological profile of G. can insinuate themselves. It's the element that makes the notion of consent so beside the point. Very often, in the case of sexual abuse or abuse of the vulnerable, one comes across the same denial of reality, the same refusal to consider oneself a victim. And indeed, how is it possible to acknowledge having been abused when it's impossible to deny having consented, having felt desire...?

Vanessa Springora tr. Natasha Lehrer, "The Imprint," Consent: A Memoir, EPUB ed. (New York, New York: HarperVia, 2021).

Books, 2022

Favorite books, first-time reads: Ada Palmer, Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota #4) J. Anderson Coats, Spindle and Dagger Gayle Brandeis, Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak in Chorus Vanessa Springora, Consent: A Memoir Shola von Reinhold, LOTE James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All

Runners up: Marcial Gala, Call Me Cassandra; Faith Jones, Sex Cult Nun; Maurice Chammah, Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty; Inua Ellams, The Half-God of Rainfall; Reginald Dwayne Betts, A Question of Freedom and Felon; Roland Barthes, Image - Music - Text; Robert A. Schanke, That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta, Colston Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

Notable re-read experiences: Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen's Thief series Tanith Lee, Lords of the Flat Earth 1-3 Anne Rice, The Witching Hour Adele Géras, Troy Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life the latter half of the Shakespeare canon

Books that made me the angriest: Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships Rachel Hope Cleves, Unspeakable: A Life Beyond Sexual Morality Genevieve Gornichec, The Witch's Heart Hannah Capin, Foul is Fair Total books as of 12/30 is roughly 341 (that includes some but not all of the rereads). I of course had many other notable reading experiences that do not fit into any of the above categories, including Dion Fortune's The Sea Priestess and the 13 Sookie Stackhouse books.

Now that 2023 is over, here's my highlights of books I read this year:

🏆Favourite book: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I simply loved it. I love these characters so much, I wish I could give them a hug (especially Mariam!!!). I will never forget the scene at the end where [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] (seriously though, it will stay with me).

🏅Honorable mention: The Royal Game by Stephan Zweig. I read it almost in one sitting. Very addictive. The reason why it's not my favourite number 1 is probably only because it's short (100 pages) so it doesn't "stay" with you the same way that the characters that you've been following for so long I guess, though it's still very memorable. But I really enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to everyone.

🏆Most original/innovative/unique: The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn. I picked it up because it was recommended by the library in the public libraries app, saved it in my to-read list, picked it some months later when I had mostly forgotten what it was about besides being sci-fi, and I was so confused lmao. But the confusion is intentional and I enjoyed the process of piecing together what the hell is going on through the witnesses.

🏆Most fun: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakhov. Enjoyable and very unhinged. (I was also really enjoying the novel inside the novel).

🏆Best (auto)biographical non-fiction: Consent by Vanessa Springora. Definitely a must-read. The author explains how she consensually entered a relationship with an older famous man when she was a young teen, how the consent is created, how she created the consent of those around her (mostly her mother), how this relationship affected the rest of her life even after it was over, and how society around her normalized it. It's very well written, even though it's a hard topic it makes you want to keep reading, and also shocks you with the way many people —including people in the left— have encouraged this to happen. This one, The Royal Game and A Thousand Splendid Suns are definitely the best books I've read this year, followed by Infinity Inside a Reel. I really recommend it to everyone to understand what a situation like this really looks like, especially now that conservatives go around throwing around the word "groomer" without any meaning.

🏆Best topic-centered non-fiction: Infinity Inside a Reel: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo. Yes, I know in English it was translated as "Papyrus" instead of "Infinity Inside a Reel", but that's a mistake and, in my opinion, the reason why this book got bad criticism by English-speaking readers when it got translated to English. It was a huge hit in Spanish, Catalan, and the other languages around me, widely loved and praised by everyone who read it, and the only bad reviews I've seen of it online have been from English speakers and all for the same reason: precisely because of what the book is. It's not a classroom academic text book, it never intended to be. English-speakers who say they didn't like it because it's too poetic and personal miss the whole point that makes the book so delightful, but I understand they got misguided and had wrong expectations because of the title and synopsis they were given, so the book didn't always reach its intended audience in the English-speaking world. Leaving that aside, I really recommend it. I found it very lovely.

HI! This is my first ask I've ever done on this app so please, do let me know if I've made any mistakes or if I've violated any of the etiquette rules.

That aside, I discovered your writing account/s in the comment section of a post asking for beautifully written fanfiction on Reddit and was instantly enchanted by the lushness of your writing and the imagery found in so many of your works, not to mention the unique concepts and plotlines they contained. And you wrote for a lot of my favourite ships too.

The number of screenshots I have of various passages I found particularly moving or breathtaking in its detailed description of love, or the world surrounding these characters is ... it's a lot yea. It seems I've gone on a bit of an unrelated ramble to what I would like to ask, so apologies. Ehem

I was wondering, what are some of your favourite authors? Or favourite writers that you tend to go to for a re-read or just a damn good fanfic? It's just that you write so beautifully and breathe such life into these characters that I'm curious as to the fics/books you've taken inspiration from or enjoy!

Hi! Omg, thank you for such a lovely ask. I've been really feeling rough about my writing lately and this was such a bright spot in my day <3. I'm so happy that you've been enjoying my stuff!

And I will ALWAYS talk about books and writers I love, and I'm gonna list far too many here because I have so many favorites and also do not know how to shut up. These are all books I've absolutely loved and have had some influence or impact on the way I write, or I hope that they do.

Fiction Frankenstein (1818 edition) - Mary Shelley Written On The Body - Jeanette Winterson On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong Cassandra - Christa Wolf Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson Grendel - John Gardner Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor Simple Passion - Annie Ernaux An American Childhood - Annie Dillard Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy Lote - Shola von Reinhold Crash - JG Ballard Hunger - Knut Hamsun Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis Outside the Gates - Molly Gloss Shadow & Claw - Gene Wolfe The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki A Map to the Door of No Return - Dionne Brand Piranesi - Susanna Clarke Near to the Wild Heart - Clarice Lispector Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov We Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson How To Be Both - Ali Smith Non-Fiction Erotism - Georges Bataille A Lover's Discourse - Roland Barthes Blood, Bones, and Butter - Gabrielle Hamilton Just Kids - Patti Smith Consent - Vanessa Springora Stigmata - Hélène Cixous Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets - Svetlana Alexievich

Poetry All The Flowers Kneeling - Paul Tran Night Sky With Exit Wound - Ocean Vuong The Descent of Alette - Alice Notley Our Andromeda - Brenda Shaughnessy Desire - Frank Bidart

Le manque, le manque d'amour comme une soif qui boit tout, une soif de junkie qui ne regarde pas à la qualité du produit qu'on lui fournit et s'injecte sa dose létale avec la certitude de se faire du bien. Avec soulagement, reconnaissance et béatitude.

Vanessa Springora, Le Consentement (Grasset, 2020)