A Punk Feminist Manifesto: Virginie Despentes' Provocative and Personal Autobiography
"I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the hysterics, the freaks, all those excluded from the great meat market of female flesh. And if I'm starting here it's because I want to be crystal clear: I'm not here to make excuses, I'm not here to bitch. I wouldn't swap places with anyone because being Virginie Despentes seems to me a more interesting gig than anything else out there."
Out of print in the U.S. for far too long, French author and filmmaker Virginie Despentes' autobiographical feminist manifesto, King Kong Theory, is back in an improved English translation by Frank Wynne. Described as "blistering with anger, and so precisely phrased that it feels an injustice to summarize it" (Nadja Spiegelman, New York Review of Books), this powerful, provocative, and personal work shatters received ideas about rape, prostitution, sex, and gender.
Drawing from her own experiences, Despentes offers a candid account of how the author of controversial works like Baise-Moi and Vernon Subutex came to be. King Kong Theory is at once an autobiography, a call for revolt, and a manifesto for a new punk feminism. Despentes' most beloved and reviled work is a must-read for anyone interested in feminism, gender studies, and women's rights.