French literati put brave face on faked Belgian book

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — The duped French book-editor and film-producer of a faked Belgian Holocaust memoir scrambled Friday to put a brave face on the deception, which saw the best-selling book made into the movie "Surviving With Wolves."

The book of the same name recounted the incredible tale of a young Jewish girl whose parents were deported from Brussels by the Nazis during World War II and who then crossed Europe with a wild wolf pack who had adopted her.

But a Belgian newspaper revealed on Thursday that the author of the original autobiography, 70-year old Misha Defonseca, had made the memoir up -- and was in fact not even Jewish.

Now both the book is likely to be re-classified as fiction and the movie will have to have the phrase "Based on a true story" removed...