Sisters In Hell

Samira Bellil would have much preferred to live a quiet life that didn't become the basis for a best-selling book. But after years of psychological torment caused by repeated gang rapes in one of the banlieues — the destitute public housing projects that ring most French cities — she penned Dans l'enfer des tournantes ("In the hell of the tournantes"; the last word is a slang term for gang rape). Published last month, the book has shocked France with its graphic accounts of the attacks and Bellil's impassioned denunciation of the increasing violence and sexual abuse committed against young women in...