Duke University Romance Studies professor Alice Kaplan won a Los Angeles Times Book Award for her work, The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (University of Chicago Press). The awards for nine categories of writing were announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles Saturday.

Kaplan, who is also a professor in Duke's Program in Literature, won the award in the history category. Judges said Kaplan "writes with a rare beauty and striking control over her material. ... This is history as it should be written."

Kaplan's book traces the story of Brasillach, a gifted writer whose work as editor of a pro-Fascist publication led to his arrest as a Nazi collaborator after the fall of France's Vichy government.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, established in 1980, is awarded by the Los Angeles Times. Finalists for the awards were selected by eight three-member committees; most of the judges are authors. Besides the prestige of recognition, the book prize carries a $1,000 cash award.