["Les Guérillères"] is perhaps the first epic celebration of women ever written. And yet it seems natural, not bizarre.

Of course, "Les Guérillères" treads a path between serious epic celebration and satire of the entire form—but, so deftly is the novel written, this ambiguity does nothing to diminish its impact. One of its strengths, indeed, is that—like "The Opoponax"—it contrives to work on several levels. It is a satiric commentary on man's constant use of literary forms for self aggrandizement; and on current Women's Liberation arguments in which men feature as the imperialists and women as the colonized natives. Yet it is also a hymn of praise to women of astonishing conviction, a blueprint for women in the future. These female warriors have a racial-sexual identity: an identity confirmed and enshrined in their myths and history and poetry and religion. (pp. 5, 14)

[They] are seen as United, and it is in this compelling vision of women as a group that the force of the book lies. The intrepid band of schoolgirls (with their increasingly fierce loves and loyalties) whom Monique Wittig made so recognizable in "The Opoponax" are grown up; but they have not been siphoned off into male-orientated love and marriage. For all that they are exotic and barbaric creatures, with their own beautiful and barbarian culture, they are still—for any woman, anyway—familiar. And it is this that makes Monique Wittig at the moment so relevant a writer. For in spite of all the counter-propaganda—the world of sewing classes and women's mags and Dr. Spock—she has written a book in which a tribe of Amazonian revolutionaries are both fiercely recognizable, and subversively sympathetic….

That [Monique Wittig] has still to find a wide public is unfortunate, for she is not only a deeply intelligent and disciplined writer. She is also in many ways more accessible than some current French novelists. There is warmth and humor in her books as well as discipline.

It could be that the topicality of her second novel will make it something of a cult book—which would be no bad thing. It would be nice to see real attention given to what is, after all, the first imaginative work of fiction in which the battle between the sexes is fought in Women's Liberation terms. And a work of fiction that in itself is clear testimony to at least one woman's wit and intelligence and imagination. (p. 14)