Alice Kaplan is an admired writer about France, whose previous books The French Lesson and The Collaborator were both National Book Critics Circle nominees. Originally published by the University of Chicago Press, she has now moved to Free Press, where editor Bruce Nichols won her new book over offers from Ecco, FSG and Viking. Agent Marly Rusoff and Kaplan agreed, said Rusoff, that Nichols’s background in publishing historical works was crucial in their choice for him as editor of The Interpreter, which tells the grim tale of how black GIs were disproportionately court-martialed, and some of them executed, for crimes against civilians during the WWII liberation of France, while whites similarly accused went unpunished. Free Press will publish in fall 2005.
