Q & A with Roseanna M. White, Author of The Collector of Burned Books
1. What inspired this story?
A couple years ago, I read a nonfiction book called When Books Went to War, all about the role of books and the publishing industry during World War II. In that book was this brief, passing mention of a place in Paris called the Library of Burned Books—it was started by German expat writers who were forced from their homeland in 1933 because of their heritage or political ideas, but it was also sponsored by writers from around the world similarly censored and banned in Germany, like H.G. Wells.
As soon as I read about this place, I was intrigued. An institution by the same name soon followed in New York, but it was the Paris one that really intrigued me . . . because it was the Paris one, the original, that was presented to the Nazis on a metaphorical golden platter the very day they took Paris in 1940. What happened to it? That’s still a mystery. The author of When Books Went to War said the Germans kept it “under lock and key” for the duration of the war. And that got me thinking.
Why would they simply protect it instead of immediately dismantling it? What sort of person would have been put in charge of it? How would they have been impacted by the verboten books on those shelves? And, of course . . . what if that “library protector” had secrets of his own?
It took me a while to figure out which story I wanted to tell, but once I realized that I wanted my focus to be, not on what the library was before the occupation, but what happened to it during, the pieces all came together.
2. What messages or themes do you focus on in this book?
As one might expect from the title and location, censorship and book banning is a big subject in the book . . . but I try to dig a little deeper into it and explore why our human instinct is to snuff out what we disagree with. Why we go from I don’t like that idea to That idea is dangerous to That idea must be eliminated.
Freedom, however, is irrevocably linked to ideas and the people who put them down on paper. A people that reject the responsibility of sifting through ideas on their own is a people who will soon only think what they’re told to think. But the real kicker here is that it wasn’t the Nazi party that decided to dictate to the people what they could read or not. It was the people, the university students, who demanded “dangerous” or “unfitting” or “disgraceful” books be removed that led to the book burnings now decried as one of the worst offenses to freedom.
Yet if we truly take a look at ourselves, our communities, our culture . . . are we so different? Are we willing to accept the challenge given in this story to read, not just what we like, but what we don’t? To read things we don’t agree with, not for the sake of arguing, but for the sake of understanding? To read not to condemn but to grow? I don’t know about you, but that’s something I need to work on!
3. How does faith play a role in this story?
While Paris in the 1940s was known for its rather lax morals, my heroine, Corinne, is a woman of faith clinging to God, not just to protect her from the evil surrounding her, but to strengthen her for whatever the fight for freedom looks like.
My hero, Christian, is forced into a Nazi uniform, but as he puts it, “He called the Nazi party an enemy before the rest of the world knew to fear them.” At the start of the book, he’s coming out of a place of extreme hardship that has left him too hollow to approach God . . . but he quickly remembers that the only way to be filled again is to invite the Lord to close that distance.
4. What do you hope that readers learn from The Collector of Burned Books?
My deepest prayer is that as readers get to know Corinne and Christian, they’ll not just get swept up in romance or espionage or the tension of living a double life under an oppressive regime, but that we’ll all pause to remember that words, spoken but especially written, are so, so powerful. The words we consume become our thoughts, our thoughts become our actions, and our actions become our legacy. Are we giving those words the care they deserve?
5. Who is your favorite character in the book and why?
Ack, this is always such a hard question! I love Corinne for her boldness and fearlessness, Christian for his gentle spirit . . . but I think my favorite might be Corinne’s adopted uncle, Georges, because he’s in fact a grown-up version of a beloved minor character from my previous books set in the First World War. Georgie was always my on-the-ground, behind-enemy-lines contact . . . and I had so much fun imagining who he’d be in this next war!
6. What do you find to be the most challenging part of the writing process? What advice would you offer young writers?
I’m one of those people who love the entire process of book creation, from the first spark of idea to editing. The challenge, I think, is always going to be finding the time for creativity amidst the demands of life. But to those interested in becoming authors, my best advice is always “Respect the dream.” Give the learning process the time it deserves. Most of us are in a rush to publication, but would we want someone performing surgery after two whole months of study? Of course not. Chasing the dream of writing is no different than chasing the dream of healing or being a missionary or building bridges. It deserves the same respect . . . and demands the same investment of time. And especially if you feel this is something the Lord has called you to, treat that time spent chasing it as something sacred . . . because your words can change the world!
7. Which books and authors have shaped you most as a writer?
So many! If I look back to childhood, my first influences were C.S. Lewis and L.M. Montgomery . . . then came Lori Wick, Francine Rivers, and Frank Perretti. There have been many, many more, of course, but those are definitely the ones that I reread now and think, Oh, THAT’S where I got that!
8. Do you have any future writing projects planned?
Always! Right now I’m working on another book set in France during the occupation, this one focusing on a fictionalized version of the amazing woman who led France’s first and biggest spy network during the war, Alliance. The Face of Deception will release in summer 2026 and has my mind abuzz with adventure and intrigue!
Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list . . . and even incognito versions of the forbidden books that were smuggled back into Germany.
For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she’d hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home.
Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party―he is a professor, one who’s done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the “relocation” of France’s libraries, he’s forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn’t want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over, and maybe find a lost piece of his heart.
