On February 6, 1945, Robert Brasillach was executed for treason by a French firing squad. He was a writer of some distinction—a prolific novelist and a keen literary critic. He was also a dedicated anti-Semite, an acerbic opponent of French democracy, and editor in chief of the fascist weekly Je Suis Partout , in whose pages he regularly printed wartime denunciations of Jews and resistance activists. Was Brasillach in fact guilty of treason? Was he condemned for his denunciations of the resistance, or singled out as a suspected homosexual? Was it right that he was executed when others, who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands, were set free? Kaplan's meticulous reconstruction of Brasillach's life and trial skirts none of these ethical subtleties: a detective story, a cautionary tale, and a meditation on the disturbing workings of justice and memory, The Collaborator will stand as the definitive account of Brasillach's crime and punishment. A National Book Award Finalist A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist "A well-researched and vivid account."—John Weightman, New York Review of Books "A gripping reconstruction of [Brasillach's] trial."— The New Yorker "Readers of this disturbing book will want to find moral touchstones of their own. They're going to need them. This is one of the few works on Nazism that forces us to experience how complex the situation really was, and answers won't come easily."—Daniel Blue, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review " The Collaborator is one of the best-written, most absorbing pieces of literary history in years."—David A. Bell, New York Times Book Review "Alice Kaplan's clear-headed study of the case of Robert Brasillach in France has a good deal of current-day relevance. . . . Kaplan's fine book . . . shows that the passage of time illuminates different understandings, and she leaves it to us to reflect on which understanding is better."—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times Although not as well known in the West as the trials of Marshal Petain and Pierre Laval, Brasillach's is in many ways more interesting for academics since he was a prominent author rather than a politician. As Kaplan (Romance studies and literature, Duke Univ.; French Lessons) vividly illustrates by using archival sources and interviews, Brasillach practiced denunciatory journalism while editor of a pro-Fascist newspaper and in contributions to other publications. He called for the expulsion of Jews from France, praised collaboration with Germany, and encouraged violence against Jews, resistance members, and the leaders of the previous Republic. While Brasillach was viciously anti-Semitic, that played little part in his trial, for he was tried, convicted, and executed for treason. (He was tried after the liberation of Paris but before the end of the war.) Brasillach has since become a hero for both Holocaust revisionists and followers of Le Pen. This study of his work, trial, and conviction is fascinating and well written. Recommended for academic collections and large public libraries. -John A. Drobnicki, York Coll., CUNY Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. The riveting tale of an episode, hardly known to Americans, that continues to affect French life and politics and raises profound moral issues. One of the most searing moments of modern French history came after the liberation of Paris in 1944. The time to settle scoresbetween the defeated Vichy government, together with its French collaborators, and members of the Resistance and De Gaulle's liberating army, as well as the survivors and ghosts of French Jewryhad arrived. And that moment was encapsulated in the treason trial, conviction, and execution of the mordant anti-Semitic writer and Nazi sympathizer Robert Brasillach. Kaplan (Romance Studies/Duke; French Lessons: A Memoir, 1993) focuses her resonant work on the enduring question of the responsibility of writers and intellectuals to their societies. For the French, then and still debating their responsibility for Vichy and the extermination of thousands of French Jews, the question in 1944 was whether one can commit ``political treason in writing, rather than in action.'' Kaplan's study, the first based upon all available sources, successfully resolves distortions in the earlier historical record and makes clear beyond all doubt Brasillach's role in inducing others to send innocents to their graves. Equally important, she exhumes the lives and roles of Brasillach's prosecutor and defense attorney, as well as the members of the jury that convicted him. With exemplary balance, she gives all their due (although, inexcusably, there are no photos, not even of the main characters). In the end, she judges Brasillach's execution an error because his martyrdom still fuels the French far right. But surely Albert Camus, no friend of collaborators, had the stronger and more noble case: that Brasillach's death was immoral because all capital punishm