In 1941, Jewish American writer and avant-garde icon Gertrude Stein embarked on one of the strangest intellectual projects of her life: translating for an American audience the speeches of Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state for the collaborationist Vichy government. From 1941 to 1943, Stein translated thirty-two speeches in which Pétain outlines the Vichy policy barring Jews and other ""foreign elements"" from the public sphere and calls for France to reconcile with Nazi occupiers. Unlikely Collaboration pursues a troubling question: Why and under what circumstances would Stein.