Le Torchon Brûle. Menstruel. Nos. 1 (1971) through 6 (1973) (all published)

Six issues, 16-24 pp. each, comprising a complete run of the illustrated French-language serial, as issued by the publishers in 1982. Folio. 27 x 39 cm. Very good. Illus. stiff wraps reproducing the graphic art from issue 1. Small marginal tear to front wrapper. [1857]

A French feminist newspaper published by the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes ("Movement for the Liberation of Women," known colloquially as the MLF) between 1971 and 1973, amongst whom Marie Dedieu, Juliette Kahane, Marielle Burkhalter, Nadja Ringart, and Sylvina Boissonnas featured prominently. The cover of each issue offered a joke about its slightly unpredictable publication schedule, adverrtising itself as a "menstruel" (i.e., "menstrual") instead of a "mensuel" magazine, which means "appearing monthly." From the rear cover: "LeTorchon Brûle gave expression to younger members of the [French feminist] Movement, by letting their rage, humor, and moods explode onto the page : upset, disputation, spontaneity, love and hate, impulsiveness, abundance, diversity, contradictions. It gave voice to revolution at the surface level through contested realities, discourse, reactions, and also to the deeper revolutions of memories, and of bodies, whose first beginnings stirred in October 1968 and continue today, as adults, both in their maturations and the revolutions in the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes." Scarce complete.