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« Nancy Nall kayos a plagiarist in one round | Main | This week's latest fake-memoir controversy »

March 01, 2008

Dancing (the Hora) With Wolves

The latest fake-memoir scandal makes James Frey seem a model of plausibility...

A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her best-selling "memoir" depicting how, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust, her lawyers said Friday.

Misha Defonseca's book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

Her two Brussels-based lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II....

Dancing (the Hora) With Wolves wasn't true? Who coulda guessed?

David Mehegan has the backstory in today's Boston Globe, a bizarre tale of lawsuits, bitterness, and a publisher and writer who turned on each other like, well...:

Seldom has a publisher set out to prove that her own book is a hoax. But that is what happened with the memoir of Misha Defonseca, a heartwarming Holocaust-era tale that has turned out to be a fake. The publisher, Jane Daniel, said she disregarded warnings about the book in its early stages but later - after losing a devastating lawsuit by the author - sought proof that the woman she had once hoped would make her a fortune was a liar.

Blake Eskin has more at Slate.com, and Daniel herself is running an anti-Defonseca blog with lots more details.

09:50 AM in Ethics, Mendacity, Non-fiction, Publishing |

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Comments

metroknow

So I guess my autobiography about growing human gills, drinking my own urine, and being chased by Dennis Hopper on a Jet ski is out?

I better call my lawyers.

Posted by: metroknow | March 01, 2008 at 11:28 AM

Jil

Wait a minute. Wolf saliva is not an antiseptic? Who knew?

Posted by: Jil | March 02, 2008 at 09:55 AM

Ranger Bob

Ah... the old phony Holocaust kiddie memoir game! The suckers bite this one every time.

As far back as 1941, the non-existent Dirk van der Heid's "My Sister And I" made the best seller lists AND inspired a pop song. Too bad the refugee kid from Holland was merely the creation of an American ad-man's imagination.

Scamming profits off someone else's suffering redefines the term "disgraceful" in my book.

Posted by: Ranger Bob | March 02, 2008 at 11:46 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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