‘Left to die’: Quebec woman who survived attempted femicide writes fictional novel drawing inspiration from her story

After Quebec woman Geneviève Rioux survived an attempted femicide in 2018, writing became her outlet as a way to heal.

She recently published a fictional novel Même pas morte, which translates to “not even dead” and it’s now on bookshelves across the province.

The book shared the realities of violence against women and draws inspiration from her own story.

Overnight on April 8, 2018, Rioux lived through an attempted sexual assault and femicide in Sherbrooke, about 156 kilometres east of Montreal.

“I was stabbed 18 times, I was left to die,” she said in French during an interview. As police are still investigating, she’s unable to speak directly about the case.

“From that, I wrote a collection of poetry called Survivaces, where there is really a desire for truth, and in the novel, I borrowed the voice of fiction,” she said.

“It is not my story, it is the story of my character, Stéphanie, but obviously there is inspiration.”

“Who dies at the moment of killing? Her breath is short, stretched out on the ground, she can barely breathe,” said Rioux, as she read a passage of her novel in French.

One of the messages she says it sends: “how victims can finally have a certain power over their experiences, do something about these difficulties and come out of it a winner in some way.”

“When you are the victim of an event like that, I don’t think you ever recover,” she said. “You can learn to live with it, you can reduce the suffering, you can repair things, but it’s like a wound, the scar remains afterwards.”

On top of being a writer, Rioux is also a PHD student in psychology and says her expertise has helped her seek the necessary resources to recover.

“I know what trauma is and I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to crystallize the fear inside me. Obviously, I have fears like all victims. But what I often try to tell myself is that I don’t want these fears to hold me back.”

Rioux is now a spokesperson for the Centre for Restorative Justice Services (CSJR) and speaks out on behalf of victims of violence, in hopes to help put an end to femicides.

“By doing more prevention, by promoting services to support, in particular men, when we see signs of aggression and violence, to be able to contain it before it becomes a tragedy.”