num_pages: 496
description: The New Yorker Best Books of 2022Vanity Fair Best Books of 2022Booklist Best Books of 2022Singer. Actress. Beauty. Spy. During WWII Josephine Baker the world's richest and most glamorous entertainer was an Allied spy in Occupied France. Prior to World War II Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing her beauty and sexuality; she was the highest-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city Paris she was banned from the stage along with all negroes and Jews. Yet instead of returning to America she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine  bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singers life. During the war years as a member of the French Nurse paratroopersa cover for her spying workBaker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she servedthe US France and Britain. Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research including previously undisclosed letters and journals Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthon.
language: English
title: Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy
publisher: PublicAffairs