“A woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read.”

So begins Michelle Hattingh’s presentation for her Psychology honors thesis. For years, she has studied the perception of rape victims in her home city of Cape Town, one of the world’s capitals of gender-based violence. But on the night she receives her degree, Michelle and a friend are raped on the beach.

Despite the support from her loving middle-class family and many resources at her disposal, Michelle’s identity is eclipsed by the horrors of that night. By the taint she feels. By the fallout of friendships and jobs, and her harrowing treatment from police and doctors.

I’m The Girl Who Was Raped is Michelle’s reclamation of body, selfhood, and future. This urgent and myth-shattering debut memoir is the battle cry of a survivor—and an invitation to look beyond statistics to the women, daughters, friends, artists, and leaders who refuse to let abusers define them.