Our guest is E.R. Ramzipoor, a writer based in California. She studied political science at UC-Berkeley, where she researched underground literature in resistance movements -- and her newly published first novel, which she tells us about, grew directly out of this research. Per a starred review of this work in Booklist: "When the Belgian newspaper Le Soir was co-opted by the Nazis during WWII and turned into a propaganda-spewing daily, it didn't sit well with members of the Front de l'Indépendance, especially maverick journalist and prankster Marc Aubrion, who, together with several of his fellow Resistance members, published a parody edition, Faux Soir, in 1943, which mocked Hitler and the Nazis. From these historical facts, debut novelist Ramzipoor has fashioned a compelling historical thriller that details the 18 days in which Aubrion and his team managed to write, print, and distribute their astounding parody. After being rounded up by the Nazis and told to fabricate articles for Le Soir about the evils of the Allies or face execution, Aubrion and his colleagues decided to go a different way, knowing that to do so would almost certainly mean their deaths.... This is a long book, but it is never less than engrossing."
"The Ventriloquists: A Novel"
