French film director Valentin Hénault has released a memoir titled J’avais un rêve indien. Dans l’enfer de la prison de Gorakhpur, recounting his months in jail after attending a Dalit rights march in 2023.
The title of the book translates to "I Had an Indian Dream: In the Hell of Gorakhpur Prison".
Hénault arrived in India on August 10, 2023, to make a documentary on atrocities against Dalit women. He travelled through Bihar and Jharkhand before reaching Uttar Pradesh.
On October 10, 2023, he attended an Ambedkar people’s march led by farmer women demanding land rights for Dalits.
According to reports, he was surrounded by local intelligence agents after a speaker acknowledged his presence as an international observer. Police later accused him of violating visa conditions under Article 14b of the Foreign Act and arrested him. He was sent to Gorakhpur jail.
The book, launched in India on January 15, 2026, is currently available only in French. Structured into 16 chapters, it documents what Hénault says he witnessed inside the prison, including accounts of physical torture, agony, and the stories of other inmates.
He opens the memoir by writing, “I had an Indian dream like others had an American dream.” Describing the work as both personal testimony and a record of fellow prisoners’ experiences, he said it recounts the month he spent in Gorakhpur jail and the people he met there.
Hénault has previously said he was placed in a cell meant for mentally unstable inmates. He told French newspaper Le Monde there was physical abuse to make inmates stay quiet, though he described having slightly more space there as a privilege.
He left India on May 4