Résumé en français : le roman historique est un genre délicat et Sharon Dogar en a récemment fait l'expérience en romançant l'histoire d'Anne Frank.

63 years after her diaries were posthumously published, Anne Frank remains newsworthy. This time a British novelist who writes books for teenagers, Sharon Dogar, has written a book that fictionalises the romantic life of Frank. Dogar imagines the relationship between Frank and a young suitor who lived next door, and she has stumbled across controversy in the process.
Frank’s last remaining relative is 84-year-old Buddy Elias, who lives in Basel, Switzerland. He was sent a copy of the book, called Annexed, and was unhappy that Anne Frank had been “sexed up” by Dogar, telling the Swisster website that there was “no sex” in his first cousin’s short life. Dogar is reportedly going to change the story of her book to accommodate Elias’s wishes.

In inventing fictional situations and dialogue for a real historical figure, Dogar is experimenting with something notoriously difficult. Not many writers have pulled off this challenging trick of supplementing real history for the demands of their own art. It is possible to look wildly implausible, as well as it being extremely likely that you will upset someone – as Dogar did.

The author Helen Dunmore recently warned against fictionalising real figures at the Hay Literary Festival, calling it “dangerous territory”. Meanwhile, historian Niall Ferguson said such narratives “contaminates historical understanding”. Given all this opposition to placing real people in fiction, you’d think it’s a wonder anyone has done it at all. But there are some real success stories from down the years.

Of course, some of the most illustrious literature ever written is set against a backdrop of real circumstances. Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, D.H; Lawrence, Graeme Greene and Patrick White are just a few great writers who used real wars, political upheavals and social conditions to drive their novels, albeit with invented characters. But what of those works that actually put new words in the mouths of famous figures? That create new settings and contexts for recognisable people?

As recently as last month, Hillary Mantel won the inaugural Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, beating off competition from Robert Harris, among others. Mantel’s Wolf Hall is an acclaimed imagining of the times of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII.
Of course, Sir Walter Scott himself arguably provided the blueprint for the historical fiction form with his Waverly novels.

But in the 20th century, there is one book that stands above all others when considering those that twist history to the author’s wishes. Published in 1975, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime is a novel with interweaving storylines and fascinating narrative layers that features such real figures as Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, Robert E. Peary and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Doctorow has them all interacting with his own fictional characters in nothing more than incidental situations, and, unlike Dogar, does nothing to interfere with the legacy of these people, nor places them in outlandish situations. The book is a stunning study of America in the early 20th century.

Moving away from literature, in recent times television has jumped on the bandwagon of interweaving real characters into make-believe. None more so that American series Entourage, which had featured director James Cameron, actress Mandy Moore, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, Jessica Alba and Scarlet Johansson. But with each of these characters playing themselves and agreeing to be portrayed however the creators of the series wish, there is little chance of upsetting relatives, as Sharon Dogar did last month.