In the startlingly intimate Rape New York, out now, Jana Leo discusses her "nonviolent rape" of 2001 and the subsequent years she spent seeking justice.
Why did you decide to write this book now?
It didn’t start as a book. I started gathering all the documents from the court cases. I started selecting the ones that were more interesting and I decided to make a movie, because it’s part of what I do, but it didn’t work out. Then I went back to the documents and began writing and eventually had around 350 pages. I finished two years ago and was able to find a publisher in London. That was good, but I really wanted it to be published in America because it takes place in New York.
You identify myths in the concept of home as a safe place. How can we re-conceptualize the idea of “home”?
Home is two things. Home is a place where you go and you rest and you are comfortable and nobody’s watching you, but it’s also a place that is full of your own fears. There’s the association that the place for females is in the house. Therefore, if you are a woman you should feel that the house is safer than the street, which makes certain sense, but what if the enemy is inside? The home can become something that’s against you. This is a sort of existential response, and this can apply to both women and men. We may think that this association [a woman’s place is in the home] is no longer a reality, but it is. It’s a reality that more women don’t work, or work at home, and stay inside. And some men too. I don’t think that can be extended to the whole society, but it is still very common among poor people.
New York City, specifically Harlem–your neighborhood at the time–are also subjects in the book. How do you experience New York now, not as a tourist or resident, but as a returning guest and former victim?
I see the dark side of New York more now, more than the clean side. I’m more aware of the hidden side, not only as related to my story and to buildings and to hallways and to rape but also to other kinds of operations going on. Somehow I became more aware of how the city was working. And that made me more skeptical of the city. In a way, I enjoy it less, because I don’t really follow the fiction. I went to New York because it was great in the movies.
In your retelling of the assault you say “I saw the meaninglessness of existence. I have not been able to recover from that moment and don’t expect to.” How have you dealt with this and continued to live your life?
I developed a resistance to frustration. I know that it’s not a big deal, I just relax about it, so that’s completely changed my attitude. And it’s good because you feel like, “What are the real things?” and “What are not?” and sometimes you think, I’m wasting my life doing things that are not that meaningful. It may end sometime soon and you’re aware of how valuable it is. Until I felt that close to death I didn’t realize how valuable it is, I’d taken it for granted. So I became more grateful to be alive. But there’s always something unreachable in the back of the mind, and I don’t think that’s going to change with time.
How do you hope people respond to Rape New York?
I want to break the gender thing with the book. To say that it happened to a female by a man, but it’s really a crossing of limits and it shouldn’t be done because this is what happens and this is how it makes people feel. You are part of society and you are civilized and you shouldn’t rape. You are acting against society and that’s that. It happens to all kinds of people, it happens to rich and educated people. It’s an aggression to society, not only to the person.
