I Choose To Live

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

'I lived through the Dutroux affair from the inside, and all these years I have kept silent about it - about my 'personal' Dutroux Affair, my time in the company of the most hated psychopath in Belgium. I need to write this book for three reasons: so that people stop giving me strange looks and treating me like a curiosity; so that no one ever asks me any more questions ever again; and so that the judicial system never again frees a paedophile for 'good behaviour'.' 'The Dutroux Affair' shook the whole of Europe. In the middle of the immense machinery of investigation and justice there was Sabine Dardenne herself, Dutroux's last victim. She was held captive for eighty days - and survived. Far from sensationalising the horror, her story, dignified and restrained, is ultimately uplifting. Says Sabine Dardenne,'I choose to live.'

Reviews

'A moving tale of courage and survival. Extraordinary strength ... one comes away from her book shocked, angered and deeply humbled' Mail 'Like the scariest fairy tales, it involves a little girl, a secret dungeon and a monster. But it is not a fairy tale: it is true ... I have never read a more harrowing book... unbearable were it not for the character - brave, difficult, honest and furiously unsentimental - of its narrator' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'A portrait of courage' Ireland on Sunday 'Direct, unpretentious, chatty, feet-on-the-ground. Sometimes shockingly so.' Guardian 'I Choose to Live is [Sabine Dardenne's] dignified, restrained and ultimately uplifting testimony' Big Issue

Author Bio

Sabine Dardenne was Marc Dutroux's last victim and was held prisoner for eighty days. In 2004, eight years after her kidnapping, she testified at his trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.