Raw strings as input from File?

[utabintarbo]

I have a log file with full Windows paths on a line. eg:
K:\A\B\C\10xx\somerandomfilename.ext->/a1/b1/c1/10xx
\somerandomfilename.ext ; t9999xx; 11/23/2009 15:00:16 ; 1259006416

As I try to pull in the line and process it, python changes the "\10"
to a "\x08". This is before I can do anything with it. Is there a way
to specify that incoming lines (say, when using .readlines() ) should
be treated as raw strings?

TIA