La Passe Imaginaire (The Imaginary Pass)

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Grisélidis Réal

Verticales/Gallimard , Paris, 2006, French

Nonfiction, General

ISBN: 9782070776931

From the Publisher. The Imaginary Pass is the result of a sustained correspondence during the summer of 1980 to the winter of 1991 between a prostitute, Grisélidis Réal, and Jean-Luc Hennig (who wrote the preface to this edition), detailing her life and the lives of her fellow prostitutes. With rage, rawness, and tenderness, these letters reveal a self-portrait of Réal as a great traveler, eclectic reader, passionate lover, amateur sociologist, altruistic libertarian, and refined epicurean.

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Inga Sempé

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An autobiographical account of a woman who chose to become a prostitute in Switzerland in the second half of the 20th century. She fought for the rights of sex workers for whom she became a militant leader. In the book she describes her daily work in Geneva and the sexual misery of the men she tried to help, outlining all the squalid aspects of her activity with a precise clear-sightedness. Grisélidis Real offers a very interesting view of a subject that is seldom discussed and far too often obscured by a prevailing Manichean moralism.

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