In 1973, at the height of the second wave of feminism in the United States and around the world, literature was playing a critical part in raising the global female consciousness, and women were effectively bringing feminist prose to public radio, arguably in one of the earliest cross-platform marketing approaches for feminism. One of the most widely-circulated feminist novels in history, Monique Wittig’s Les Guérillères immerses us in an epic battle of the sexes, where women, having taken up arms, triumph against an army of men. First published in 1969 in France, translated into English in 1971, and brought to the airwaves in 1973 by the women at Pacifica’s WBAI in New York, this English adaptation of Les Guérillères is very likely the only one of its kind ever recorded. Today on From the Vault we proudly present this production of Les Guérillères, which has not been heard by the public ear since 1973.
From the Vault is presented through the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project, funded in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, past grants from the Grammy Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the American Archive funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the generous support of Pacifica Radio listeners.
This episode of From the Vault was first broadcast on Friday, March 23, 2012.
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