Fake memoir

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Fake memoir" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Fake memoirs form a category of literary forgery in which a wholly or partially fabricated autobiography, memoir or journal of an individual is presented as fact. In some cases, the purported author of the work is also a fabrication.

In recent years, there have been a number of such memoirs published by major publishers, some that were well received critically and became best-sellers, that have subsequently proven to have been partially or completely fabricated. A number of recent fake memoirs fall into the category of "misery lit", where the authors claim to have overcome overwhelming losses (i.e. bereavement, abuse, addiction, and poverty). Several more have detailed fabricated stories of Holocaust survival, with at least one having been penned by an actual Holocaust victim.

As a result of recent best-selling memoirs having been outed for falsification, there have been calls for stronger vetting and fact checking of an author's material.^[1]