Women’s Barracks

The Frank Autobiography of a French Girl Soldier is a classic work of lesbian pulp fiction by French writer Tereska Torrès. As the first of its genre, it received heavy backlash, and it was banned in Canada. Its popularity prompted the formation of the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials in the United States.

About Women’s Barracks in brief

Summary Women's BarracksWomen’s Barracks: The Frank Autobiography of a French Girl Soldier is a classic work of lesbian pulp fiction by French writer Tereska Torrès published in 1950. As the first of its genre, it received heavy backlash, and it was banned in Canada. Its popularity prompted the formation of the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials in the United States. Its original cover art is considered a classic image of lesbian fiction. A group of five young French women live together in a house in London during the Second World War while serving in the Free French Forces. One of the five women has a passionate affair with a well-known and married Englishman, an episode based on a real-life love affair between one of the author’s French friends and the actor Leslie Howard.

There are also lesbian encounters. As of 2005 a total of 4 million copies of the book had been sold in the U.S. and it had been translated into 13 languages. When Feminist Press republished the book in 2003, it was described as having inspired the then-new genre of lesbian and feminist literature in theUnited States. In 2010, she rewrote and translated it back into French, and was released in 2011 under the title Jeunes Femmes en Uniforme. The diaries upon which she based the book were also published.