A provocative and gripping pseudo-memoir, Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones is the story of Dr Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who now owns a lace factory in France. Aue tells us how he became involved with the Nazi party and the atrocities he has seen, perpetrated and participated in. But far from being a work of absolution, Aue seems to be writing to show how even the most cultured intellectual could become an active evil force.

There is no doubt that this book will polarise readers. Aue wants to show us the evil in all people that, allowed to run riot and legitimised by others, knows no bounds. But is Aue also trying to normalise his behaviour? And there is the further problem of fictionalising such painful history while keeping so much of the confronting facts, described precisely and in unflinching detail. What are the writer’s obligations when crossing the line between fact and fiction in this instance?