‘Act of family vengeance’: French defamation case highlights perils of writing autofiction

Mon, 12 Jan 2026

Complaint against Cécile Desprairies over Nazi collusion novel alleges that ‘resentment permeates the entire work’

The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz 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 Cécile 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.