95 pages Text by Frédéric Roux 17 x 10.3 cm Language: French Paperback Publisher: Éditions Allia 2025
In 1986, Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, a prodigy of raw power and unstoppable force. Within a few years he was not only a global superstar, but a cultural icon: adored in the ghettos, flaunted in tabloids, a symbol of both Black pride and reckless excess. Rolexes, Rolls-Royces, headlines and knockouts; Tyson seemed untouchable. Until the night he met Desiree Washington.
Eighteen years old, a contestant at the Miss Black America pageant in Indianapolis, Desiree was small, shy, from a forgotten town in Rhode Island. Three days after meeting Tyson, she accused him of rape. What followed was not only a trial, but a national earthquake. Courtroom theatrics collided with racial divides, media frenzy, and the clash between small-town America and the bright lights of celebrity.
In Desiree, Frédéric Roux revisits the case that shook the United States and split public opinion. Beyond the verdict, the book captures the end of an era, when the myth of invincibility gave way to doubt, and when the conditions of truth itself were put on trial.
