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This paper analyzes the development of the “stance” of Maurice Blanchot in the immediate postwar period (1944–1948). Blanchot’s past, extreme-right, political positions, led him to a profound repositioning in the literary field of the Liberation, as collaborationist writers were being purged. This translated into the elaboration of the writer’s stance of “staying in the background” and claiming radical literary autonomy. Conceiving of this stance as another form of participation in the literary world, it is shown how Blanchot was led to revise his critical statements and his own output in close interaction with the new forces that dominated the literary field of the Liberation, namely Sartre, who promoted the ideal of the committed writer.