Rose Valland, curator of the Jeu de Paume art museum in Paris during the WWII German occupation, is credited with infiltrating Nazi leadership to save more than 60,000 artworks stolen from Jewish owners.  Last year, award-winning journalist Michelle Young published the definitive account of  this unlikely heroine in The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of World War II Resistance Hero Rose Valland. The book made “best of the year” lists from NY Public Library to Hyperallergic and won a Massachusetts Book Awards nonfiction honor.   

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Michelle Young is an award-winning journalist and author. Her latest book, The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of World War II Resistance Hero Rose Valland was named a Best Book of 2025 by the New York Public Library, Library Journal, and Hyperallergic, and was named an Honor Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards. The Art Spy was also a finalist for the Marfield Prize and The Lambda Literary Prize and was longlisted for the  American Library of Paris Book Award. Michelle’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Airmail, The Forward and Town & Country. She is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University, and lives in the Berkshires, MA.

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