The book Révéler mes visages (Revealing My Faces) by Janis Sahraoui and Tal Madesta is a luminous and painful voyage into the heart of identity, art, and self-creation. It tells the story of a person who once called herself Sliimy, a bright pop phenomenon from Saint-Étienne whose sugary melodies and flamboyant aesthetic hid the shadows of a childhood scarred by violence and grief. This work is far more than a celebrity memoir; it is an act of reclamation, the slow and tender unveiling of a truth that had been silenced behind glitter and smiles. Through the writing of journalist and author Tal Madesta, Janis Sahraoui revisits her journey with remarkable honesty, transforming her life into a reflection on gender, survival, and the masks that both protect and imprison us.
The story begins in the quiet pain of a child misunderstood. Assigned male at birth, Janis grew up feeling like a stranger in her own body, constantly policed for her gentleness and sensitivity. Only her mother, Fatima, saw and accepted her for who she truly was, nurturing the creativity that would one day become her salvation. When Fatima passed away, violence entered the household, and the young Janis, then known as a little boy, found herself the target of cruelty both at home and at school. The taunts of being called “a failed girl” echoed through her days, shaping a feeling of exile from herself. Music became a refuge. Behind the glow of a computer screen and the anonymity of Myspace, she began composing songs under the name Sliimy, inventing a character of radiant color and charm that could exist freely in the digital world even as her real life was constrained by fear and shame.
The mask of Sliimy began to crack. What had once been a shield turned into a prison. To reclaim her life, Janis had to do something radical: she had to make peace with all her faces, to look at each version of herself with tenderness rather than shame. That journey of reconciliation is the heart of Révéler mes visages. It is both an inner pilgrimage and a confrontation with the gaze of society, which often demands that trans people explain, justify, or soften their truths. Janis’s writing, through Madesta’s sensitive narrative, captures the fragile courage of transition not as a sudden act but as a long process of remembering. To transition, in her story, is not to become someone new but to finally return home.
When Janis came out publicly as transgender and non-binary in 2021, it was a moment that rippled far beyond the music scene. France has relatively few openly trans artists of her stature, and her choice to speak out was both a personal liberation and a cultural gesture. She had already spent years moving through stages of identity, performing under the name Yanis, releasing the elegant and introspective EP L’heure Bleue in 2016, experimenting with new sounds, new aesthetics, and new ways of being seen. Yet Révéler mes visages shows that behind every reinvention there was always the same search for authenticity. The book invites readers to see not a succession of masks but an evolution of truth, each face a necessary step toward the next.
At its core, Révéler mes visages is a book about survival through creation. It shows how art can both conceal and reveal, how the act of making music, of painting faces, of choosing names, becomes a ritual of transformation. Janis’s voice is that of a survivor who refuses bitterness. She revisits her younger self, the colorful child called Sliimy, and holds her close, no longer ashamed of the naivety that once made her vulnerable. Each chapter moves between the past and present, between fame and solitude, between the imaginary world she built and the body she finally reclaimed. It is a story about grief and healing, about finding softness in a world that rewards performance over authenticity.
The book has been recognized with the 2025 Prix Galatée for writing duos, a fitting honor for a text that thrives on collaboration. But its power lies not in awards or publicity. It lies in its capacity to speak to anyone who has ever hidden behind a mask, anyone who has felt the need to invent a version of themselves to survive. Janis Sahraoui’s journey from Sliimy to Janis is both singular and universal. Her story reminds us that visibility can be both a weapon and a wound, that the courage to show one’s face comes not from perfection but from acceptance. Reading Révéler mes visages feels like listening to a long, heartfelt song, one that begins in whisper and ends in light. It is about reclaiming not only one’s identity but also one’s right to joy, to softness, to love. It is the story of an artist who once painted her face to be seen, and who now writes her truth to be known.
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