On Monday 27 February, from 18.30 to 20h, the second session of this year’s reading club of the association 50 a 50 will take place at the Ona bookshop in Pau Clarís. This time, we will be discussing a work by the French author Vanessa Springora, entitled “Consent”.

“Consent” is a work that narrates in first person the abuse suffered by the author, Vanessa Springora, at the age of thirteen by the French writer Gabriel Matzneff, aged fifty-one. With her story, which shocked French society, the author brought the sexual abuse of minors, and society’s inability to react to it, to the fore. In fact, Springora accuses French society of looking the other way and tolerating pederasty.

In the book, she describes the control and manipulation exercised by Matzneff and the lifelong consequences of this relationship.

In fact, the author highlights how he had previously had relationships with children under the age of sixteen, justifying it as an inspiration for her work.

With “Consent”, the French author explores the ambiguity of consent, as well as all the factors that can condition it. In addition, she reflects on how patriarchal society is an accomplice, and raises questions such as what the age of consent should be, who is in charge of protecting minors, and whether an adolescent has the tools to consent to sexual and affective relations with an adult.

Thus, this book is a denunciation that allows us to ask ourselves what the limits of consent are and to open a debate on all the issues surrounding them, as well as on how an entire society will turn its back on this abuse.

Finally, we would like to highlight the following quote from the book: “For many years, I’ve been tossing and turning in the cage, my dreams are all crime and revenge. Until one day the solution finally arrives, like a piece of evidence: to swallow the hunter with his own trap, to lock him up in a book” (Springora, 2020).

So, we look forward to seeing you all on Monday 27 February at Librería Ona (Pau Clarís 94), to talk about this moving book in a new session of the feminist book club 50a50 led by Anna Mercadé and Cristina Oliva.

The session is free with prior registration and is aimed at both members and people from outside the association.