Mathilde Daudet - Choisir de vivre: Un récit bouleversant

2016, French, Mathilde Daudet,

Original title: "Choisir de vivre: Un récit bouleversant" (Choosing to Live: A Heartbreaking Story) by Mathilde Daudet.

Talking about myself is not one of the things I like but I do it for two reasons. First for those who feel like prisoners of their own bodies, because it is the book of a successful transition, and then I also hope to lift part of the veil on an important taboo of our society and to open up the most closed minds.

Thierry likes risk, speed, and close to death to prove to himself that he is a man. His sister Mathilde cultivates his sweetness, his secrets. Two lives separated and yet intimately mixed. Two heroes who are only one, like Siamese.

"Choosing to live" is the story of a fight, with oneself and against the norm, but also that of a change of life, which proves that one can find the courage to be "oneself, despite the challenges. "Choosing to live" is an autobiography that uses the keys of the novel, to allow us to approach reality as closely as possible. 

Mathilde Daudet is a French author, photographer, and former war reporter. She was born Jean-Pierre Daudet in 1950 and is the great-granddaughter of the writer Alphonse Daudet, a well-known French novelist. In 2010, at the age of 60, she underwent gender reassignment surgery to become a woman. She has written a book called “Choisir de vivre” (Choose to live), which talks about her life and transition.

In addition, she is the author of "Theophobia" - a novel that explores the themes of religion, faith, and spirituality, "Lettres de mon moulin" - a collection of short stories written by Mathilde’s great-grandfather, Alphonse Daudet, and illustrated by Mathilde herself, and "The Book of the Dead" - a book that recounts Mathilde’s experiences as a war reporter in Iraq.

In her interview for Le Point, she said that "she was "incredibly lucky" after her transition in 2010. Coming from "a privileged background", she was not "discouraged by the steps" to be taken. After her operation in Thailand, and despite two court rejections, Mathilde took only a year to be recognized as a woman. "Now I'm fully happy. I laugh all the time," she says, even though some people call her "the creature" and she can't find a job. "Before, I used to have strong bouts of melancholy, quite regularly." 

Before, Jean-Pierre was a cameraman, nicknamed "Rambo" by his colleagues because he took so many risks. Jean-Pierre, a father of four, used to multiply his feminine conquests. Jean-Pierre used to be suicidal. For Mathilde was "a woman trapped in a man's body", she writes simply in her autobiography "Choisir de vivre" (Carnet nord), "by a whim unknown to nature or genetics"."

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