Tereska Torrès: Difference between revisions

At the age of 19 Torrès enlisted in [[Charles de Gaulle]]'s [[Free French Forces]] [[Volontaires Françaises]] Corps and worked as a secretary in de Gaulle's headquarters in London.<ref name="powells">{{citation |title=Women's Barracks |url=http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=155861494X |accessdate=16 December 2007 |periodical=Powell's Books bookstore }}</ref> In October 1944 when she was five months pregnant, her first husband 20-year-old Georges Torrès, stepson of pre-war French-Jewish Prime Minister [[Léon Blum]], was killed while fighting with the [[2nd Armored Division (France)|2nd Free French Armoured Division]] in [[Lorraine (province)|Lorraine]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://sousamendesfoundation.org/torres/ |title=Torrès » Sousa Mendes Foundation |first= |last=|work=sousamendesfoundation.org |year=2012|accessdate=30 September 2012}}</ref>

 

 

In 1948 Torrès married Meyer Levin in Paris. He urged her to publish the diary she wrote while serving in the Free French Forces. In 1950 Torrès published in the United States a fictional account of her wartime experiences under the title ''Women's Barracks'', which "quickly became the first paperback original bestseller" selling over 2 million copies in its first five years.<ref name=":0" /> In total 4 million copies of the book were sold in the United States and it was translated into 13 different languages. In 1952 ''Women's Barracks'' was selected as an example of how paperback books were promoting moral degeneracy, by the [[House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials]].<ref name="glbtq">{{citation |last=Theophano |first=Teresa |title=Pulp Paperbacks and Their Covers |periodical=[[glbtq.com]] |year=2002 |url=http://www.glbtq.com/arts/pulp_paperbacks.html |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105055112/http://www.glbtq.com/arts/pulp_paperbacks.html |archivedate=5 November 2007 }}</ref> When the book was republished by [[The Feminist Press]] in New York in 2003, it was acclaimed as having inspired a whole new genre of lesbian and feminist writing in the US.<ref name="lichfield">{{citation |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070616/ai_n19310147 |title=O! What A Steamy War |periodical=[[The Independent]] |date=16 June 2007 |first=John |last=Lichfield |accessdate=16 December 2007 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20080203195153/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070616/ai_n19310147 <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate = 3 February 2008}}</ref>