"The Polish poet Czesaw Miosz is famously credited with the line: When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished. In contemporary European literature, a book these days is often the beginning of a familial feud. With thinly disguised autobiographical accounts of family strife undergoing a sustained boom across the continent, it can increasingly lead to family reunions in courtrooms."
"Such was the case with the French historian Cecile Desprairies, who on Wednesday was sued for defamation by her brother and a cousin over the depiction of her late mother and her great-uncle in her 2024 novel La Propagandiste. The author's resentment toward the targeted individuals permeates the entire work, which is conceived as a genuine act of family vengeance, the plaintiffs said in their legal complaint."
Thinly disguised autobiographical novels across Europe are increasingly sparking family feuds and court cases. French historian Cecile Desprairies was sued for defamation by her brother and a cousin over depictions of her late mother and great-uncle in the 2024 novel La Propagandiste. The plaintiffs allege the work is driven by resentment and conceived as an act of family vengeance, assert lack of evidence for its central claim of a woman's collaboration with the Nazis, and demanded withdrawal and pulping. The novel was longlisted for the Prix Goncourt and praised in translation, features a narrator recounting a morphine-addicted mother linked to a pro-Nazi propagandist, and aligns with the autofiction tradition coined by Serge Doubrovsky.
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