Overview

""Shows why historical fiction matters ... This haunting tale stayed with me.""--Cara Black, author of Three Hours in Paris In a grand Paris apartment, a young girl attends gatherings regularly organized by her mother. The women talk about beauty secrets and gossip, but the mood grows dark when the past, notably World War II, comes under coded discussion in hushed tones. Years later, the silent witness to these sessions has become a prominent historian, and with this chilling autobiographical novel she sets out to unmask enigmatic figures in and around her family. Why, she seeks to understand, did the narrator's relatives zealously collaborate with the Nazi occupiers of France, even remaining for decades afterward obsessive devotees of that evil lost cause?

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"""This haunting autobiographical novel shows that the Nazi occupation of France is not an event in the distant past but part of family histories and memories that still go unspoken. C�cile Desprairies has written a brave and timely book.""--Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present ""For this spellbinding debut novel, historian Desprairies draws on her family's collaboration with the Nazis . . . With a sardonic tone and an uncompromising vision, Desprairies lays bare the inequities of Vichy France. This will stay with readers.""--Publishers Weekly ""The Propagandist shows why historical fiction matters, how stories breathe life into forgotten moments. Through the lens of one family, Desprairies' narrator, a child, reveals her mother's collaborationist past under the Nazi occupation of France. This haunting tale stayed with me.""--Cara Black, author of Three Hours in Paris ""An astute depiction of the occupation of France from the perspective of the collaborators, offering rare insight into the mindset of those all too eager to serve the Nazi cause.""--Professor Ronald C. Rosbottom, author of When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 ""In C�cile Desprairies's disqueting historical novel The Propagandist, a woman reflects on her mother's experiences as a World War II collaborator . . . The novel has a serpentine tension . . . reveals a twisted legacy of wartime rationalization and collusion.""--Foreword Reviews ""Somewhere between investigative inquiry and cathartic tale ... the historian-novelist seeks neither to explain, forgive, or condemn. She simply writes, describes--unvarnished and without pretense. 'If literature distances itself from evil, it becomes dull, ' wrote Georges Bataille. And becomes fascinating when it gets close to it.""--Le Figaro ""C�cile Desprairies breathes new life into moldy old France where the 'all so normal' collaborators stuck together after the war in tenacious silence that still endures. She succeeds with the toughness of a historian who's had enough, having suffered the pain of a descendant determined to put an end to the lies.""--Le Point ""A portrait of a woman, a clan, and a constellation of eccentric characters, The Propagandist is also an implacable assessment of a France that has failed to fully examine its conscience.""--L'Humanit�"

"""This haunting autobiographical novel shows that the Nazi occupation of France is not an event in the distant past but part of family histories and memories that still go unspoken. C�cile Desprairies has written a brave and timely book.""--Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present ""The Propagandist shows why historical fiction matters, how stories breathe life into forgotten moments. Through the lens of one family, Desprairies' narrator, a child, reveals her mother's collaborationist past under the Nazi occupation of France. This haunting tale stayed with me.""--Cara Black, author of Three Hours in Paris ""An astute depiction of the occupation of France from the perspective of the collaborators, offering rare insight into the mindset of those all too eager to serve the Nazi cause.""--Professor Ronald C. Rosbottom, author of When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 ""In C�cile Desprairies's disqueting historical novel The Propagandist, a woman reflects on her mother's experiences as a World War II collaborator . . . The novel has a serpentine tension . . . reveals a twisted legacy of wartime rationalization and collusion.""--Foreword Reviews ""Somewhere between investigative inquiry and cathartic tale ... the historian-novelist seeks neither to explain, forgive, or condemn. She simply writes, describes--unvarnished and without pretense. 'If literature distances itself from evil, it becomes dull, ' wrote Georges Bataille. And becomes fascinating when it gets close to it.""--Le Figaro ""C�cile Desprairies breathes new life into moldy old France where the 'all so normal' collaborators stuck together after the war in tenacious silence that still endures. She succeeds with the toughness of a historian who's had enough, having suffered the pain of a descendant determined to put an end to the lies.""--Le Point ""A portrait of a woman, a clan, and a constellation of eccentric characters, The Propagandist is also an implacable assessment of a France that has failed to fully examine its conscience.""--L'Humanit�"

"""Somewhere between investigative inquiry and cathartic tale ... the historian-novelist seeks neither to explain, forgive, or condemn. She simply writes, describes--unvarnished and without pretense. 'If literature distances itself from evil, it becomes dull, ' wrote Georges Bataille. And becomes fascinating when it gets close to it.""--Le Figaro ""Cécile Desprairies breathes new life into moldy old France where the 'all so normal' collaborators stuck together after the war in tenacious silence that still endures. She succeeds with the toughness of a historian who's had enough, having suffered the pain of a descendant determined to put an end to the lies.""--Le Point ""A portrait of a woman, a clan, and a constellation of eccentric characters, The Propagandist is also an implacable assessment of a France that has failed to fully examine its conscience.""--L'Humanité"

Author Information

Cécile Desprairies is a specialist in Germanic civilization and a historian of the Nazi occupation of France. She is the author of several historical works about the occupation and the Vichy regime. Born in Paris in 1957, The Propagandist is her first novel. Natasha Lehrer has translated books by Georges Bataille, Robert Desnos, Victor Segalen, Chantal Thomas and the Dalai Lama. Her co-translation of Nathalie Léger's Suite for Barbara Loden won the 2017 Scott Moncrieff Prize.

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