Love and other bombshells

Here is a literary conundrum. A legendary, best-selling Frenchnovel, written 60 years ago, has just been published in France forthe first time. How can that be? It is a long and fascinating storyin which I claim a tiny, walk-on part. More glamorously, there isalso a story within the story: the first account of the final loveaffair of a doomed, British screen idol of the 1930s and 1940s,Leslie Howard. The book in question has never previously appeared inFrance because its French author thought that it was too naughty forthe French. More exactly, Tereska Torres feared that itsdescriptions of the heterosexual and homosexual love lives of Frenchwomen soldiers in London during the Blitz might cause offence.

In 1950, her book, loosely based on her own experiences inwartime London, was translated into English as Women's Barracks. Itbecame a pulp classic, the subject of an obscenity trial and sold4,000,000 copies in the US alone. Now, after 60 years, TereskaTorres, 90, has finally translated her own book from English backinto French. The results, Jeunes Femmes en Uniforme (Phebus), haveappeared to excellent reviews. Four years ago, I interviewed MsTorres when she was first considering a French publisher'ssuggestion that she should re-write Women's Barracks. The originalFrench manuscript had been lost.

Tereska, known in France as the author of 12 other serious andwell-regarded books, had always hated her most commerciallysuccessful work. "I look on the internet and I learn that I am theliterary queen of the lesbians, the person who wrote the firstlesbian, erotic pulp novel. I hate it. I hate it," Ms Torres told meat the time. "If you look at Women's Barracks, there are five maincharacters. Only one and a half of them can be considered lesbian."

The original book is certainly not obscene and not evenespecially raunchy. I therefore took issue with its author. Women'sBarracks was, I told her, a rather moving story of young peoplesearching desperately for love among the bombs. Tereska, twicemarried and the mother of three children, agreed to translate thebook. She then changed her mind. We became friends. I occasionallycalled on her for tea and cake. I always plugged the virtues of herallegedly wicked book.

Finally, two years ago, she changed her mind again and beganworking on Jeunes Femmes en Uniforme. On the fly leaf of the copythat she sent me the other day, she generously wrote: "I would havenever written this book if not for you." My worst fears have,however, been realised. Tereska has not translated the book. She hastorn it apart. The few "naughty bits" are mercifully intact but shehas added much more about the exhilaration and terrors and courageof wartime London. She has developed the characters and deepened thestory. It is, I admit, a much better book.

Jeunes Femmes en Uniforme also contains a first full account ofthe real-life love affair between one of Tereska's French womensoldier friends - called "Josette" in the book - and Leslie Howard.In his final months before his Dakota aircraft was shot down overthe Bay of Biscay in 1943, Howard lived with "Josette" and herillegitimate son in his mansion in Surrey. The co-star of Gone withthe Wind was 50. She was in her early twenties. They had, accordingto Tereska's account, an idyllic romance with very little sex.Anyway, the new version of Tereska's book is so good and so changedthat it would be a shame if someone did not translate it back intoEnglish.

Colonel Gaddafi's unlikely French connections

The largest cultural supermarket in Paris, the FNAC on the Avenuedes Ternes, is 10 minutes' walk from our flat. It is the biggestbook-shop in Paris; the biggest seller of what I still insist oncalling "records" and "videos"; and usually the best place to buyink-cartridges or cameras or theatre tickets. My 13-year-olddaughter Grace, who recently progressed directly from Disney to1950s classic films, haunts the DVD section looking for obscureAlfred Hitchcock movies.

Imagine my surprise - and the surprise of the rest of "Bobo"(Bourgeois Bohemian) Paris - to discover that I had been puttingmoney in the pocket of Muammar Gaddafi all these years. The domedFNAC building, once a department store, is owned by Lafico, a Libyanstate investment fund. In line with EU sanctions, FNAC is now payingrent, not to Libya, but to the French government. The money has been"sequestered" and might, one day, go to a successor government inTripoli. One day.

Don't put your father on the stage

French showbusiness is a family business into which childrenfollow their parents. Antoine de Caunes, the comedian and TVpresenter, has reversed the trend. At the age of 58, he is appearingon the Paris stage for the first time, 10 years after the debut ofhis actress daughter, Emma de Caunes, now 34. Mr de Caunes is bestknown in Britain for mocking "les rosbifs" on C4's Eurotrash. He dida Ricky Gervais last month by insulting fellow TV stars whilepresenting the Csars, or "French oscars". He especially annoyed thepresentatrice Daniela Lumbroso, 50, by describing her, wittily, as"someone who just reads out stuff while smiling". For his firststage role, Mr de Caunes is the star of a one-man show. It iscalled, unconvincingly, "Un mec sympa" - "a nice guy".