The Forbidden Zone - Paperback

by Mary Borden (Author)

In 1914, Mary Borden, a wealthy heiress from Chicago and mother of three, volunteered for the French Red Cross during World War I. She quickly rose to the position of director of the French field hospitals in la zone interdite, known to English language speakers as the "Forbidden Zone," near the Western Front of Belgium and France. Borden was troubled by the brutality she witnessed and the irony of wartime nursing--healing soldiers only to send them back to war and possibly their death. Her remarkable memoir, The Forbidden Zone, is a collection of vignettes written from 1914 to 1918. Initially censored due to its realistic portrayal of the war, her lyrical prose captures the chaos, devastation, and raw emotions of battle through seventeen fragmented stories, revealing the complex realities faced by nurses and soldiers. Borden's narrative articulates the alienation, confusion, and dehumanization of industrialized warfare, offering modern readers a profound understanding of the war's atrocities--effectively putting them in the room where it happened.

Back Jacket

Mary Borden's Forbidden Zone, I have the temerity to claim, is a work with a touch of genius. A multum in parvo masterpiece. --Malcolm Brown (1930-2017), author, BBC documentary producer, and director.
In 1914, Chicago heiress Mary Borden volunteered for the French Red Cross during World War I. She quickly became director of French field hospitals in la zone interdite, known as the "Forbidden Zone," near the Western Front of Belgium and France. Disturbed by the brutality she witnessed, Borden captured the alienation, chaos, and dehumanization of industrialized warfare in a memoir of 17 fragmented vignettes, revealing the complex realities faced by nurses and soldiers. Initially censored due to its realistic portrayal of the war, the stories, laden with raw emotion, offer modern readers a profound understanding of the war's atrocities and trauma--effectively putting them in the room where it happened.

Author Biography

Mary Borden (1886-1968) was an American-British novelist and poet whose writing drew on her experiences as a war nurse. In 1913, she moved to England and joined the Suffragette movement, where she was arrested for throwing a rock through the window of His Majesty's Treasury. During the outbreak of the First World War, she used her own money to set up a field hospital for French soldiers close to the Western Front, where she served as a nurse until the end of the war.