Écrivain d'O plot
When 'Histoire d'O' was published in 1954, it caused a sensation. The sadomasochistic story, about a woman who submits to a long series of erotic humiliations in order to please her lover, shocked France. The book became a national bestseller and was the best-selling French novel internationally in the 1960s. But who was the author, who hid behind the pseudonym Pauline Réage? For a long time, the well-known writer Jean Paulhan was suspected of having written the foreword. A woman could not write such a thing. It was not until 1994 that Paulhan's lover, the journalist and essayist Dominique Aury, made himself known as the author. She opens a book about the creation of the novel and the processed themes of sexuality and power.