![]() ![]() Capote stated, and others after him, that the moment you use real names, you have to stick to what these people have said. It was equally important that the author have lived during (if not witnessed directly) the event and could interview the participants: hence the journalistic component. Quite bizarrely, Capote included novelist Rebecca West amongst them: perhaps because it was crucial that the author remain invisible and not appear in the narrative. Writers unfamiliar with the art of fiction are unable to achieve this. Truman Capote, who invented the term, explained it as “a narrative form that employed all the techniques of fictional art but was nevertheless immaculately factual.” The literary envelope turned an otherwise sordid or trivial event into timeless art. The nonfiction novel is really factual reportage. The proliferation of the French “nonfiction novel” is a phenomenon worth thinking about, especially as we try to protect the realm of fact from the invasion of fake news. A look at Ivan Jablonka, Emmanuel Carrère, and Laurent Binet ![]()
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