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Writing a new page in the surprisingly long history of literary deceit, Impostors examines a series of literary hoaxes, deceptions that involved flagrant acts of cultural appropriation. This book looks at authors who posed as people they were not, in order to claim a different ethnic, class, or other identity. These writers were, in other words, literary usurpers and appropriators who trafficked in what Christopher L. Miller terms the “intercultural hoax.”
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Impostors
Impostors Literary Hoaxes and Cultural Authenticity christopher l. miller
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2018 Printed in the United States of America 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5 isbn-13: 978-0-226-59095-0 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-0-226-59100-1 (paper) isbn-13: 978-0-226-59114-8 (e-book) doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226591148.001.0001 Published with the assistance of the Frederick W. Hilles Publication Fund of Yale University. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Miller, Christopher L., 1953– author. Title: Impostors : literary hoaxes and cultural authenticity / Christopher L. Miller. Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2018014121 | isbn 9780226590950 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226591001 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226591148 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Literary forgeries and mystifications. | Hoaxes. | French literature—History and criticism. | African literature (French)— History and criticism. | American literature—History and criticism. Classification: lcc pn71.f6 m55 2018 | ddc 098/.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014121 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
For Christopher Rivers
Contents
Preface ix Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
1
part 1 The Land of the Free and the Home of the Hoax Slave Narratives and White Lies The Forrest and the Tree Danny Santiago and the Ethics of Ethnicity Go Ask Amazon “I Never Saw It As a Hoax”: JT LeRoy Margaret B. Jones, Misha Defonseca, and “Stolen Suffering” Minority Literature and Postcolonial Theory
21 22 25 29 33 38 42
part 2 French and Francophone, Fraud and Fake What Is a (French) Author? The French Paradox and the Francophone Problem The Real, the Romantic, and the Fake in the Nineteenth Century The Single-Use Hoax: Diderot’s La Religieuse Mérimée’s Illyrical Illusions Bakary Diallo: Fausse-Bonté Elissa Rhaïs, Literacy, and Identity Sex and Temperament in Postwar Hoaxing: Boris Vian and Raymond Queneau Did Camara Lie? Two African Classics Between Canonicity and Oblivion Gary/Ajar: The Hoaxing of the Goncourt Prize and the Making-Cute of the Immigrant Who Is Chimo? Sex, Lies, and Death in the Banlieue Conclusion to Part 2
45 48 51 54 59 74 77 81 90 104 120 124
viii
contents
part 3 I Can’t Believe It’s Not Beur: Jack-Alain Léger, Paul Smaïl, and Vivre me tue Introduction Before “Paul Smaïl” Vivre me tue (Living Kills Me, or Smile) The Popular Press Reads Vivre me tue Smaïl Speaks (by Fax) The Leak Did “Hundreds” of Readers Write to Paul Smaïl? Truth and Lies à la Léger The Scholars Weigh In Azouz Begag’s Outrage and the Right to Write Reading: A Choice? The Parts He Played
125