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Lead book review

The cult of Sappho in interwar Paris

Philip Hensher describes how Paris became a magnet for literary-minded lesbians in the early 20th century – where they soon caused quite a stir

18 April 2020

9:00 AM

18 April 2020

9:00 AM

No Modernism Without Lesbians Diana Souhami

Head of Zeus, pp.432, 20

I like a book that can put its point in four outrageous words and use it as its title. Diana Souhami might be right. Without the women her book is devoted to, literary modernism would have looked very different. A consciously new approach to writing met a body of women who were being heard for the first time; the results were compelling.

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