2010 Midwest Interdiscplinary Graduate Conference

You were very nearly subject to a mass-media assault (glowing news stories, Oprah-approved bliss, an inevitable movie adaptation) regarding a new memoir, out in February, called An Angel at the Fence. It was a memoir by a man who says he met the love of his life during the Holocaust. Oprah loved the fuck out of this book and was going to no doubt push it to the top of the bestseller lists..

It’s a fake.

The publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir has canceled the book, adding the name Herman Rosenblat to an increasingly long list of literary fakers and ending with a heartbreaking crash his story _ embraced by Oprah Winfrey among others _ of meeting his future wife at a concentration camp.”I wanted to bring happiness to people,” Rosenblat said in a statement issued Saturday through his agent, Andrea Hurst. “I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world.”

Rosenblat’s “Angel at the Fence” had been scheduled to come out in February, but Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), withdrew the memoir following allegations by scholars, friends and family members that his tale was untrue.

“Berkley Books is canceling publication of `Angel at the Fence’ after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat’s agent, Andrea Hurst,” the publisher said in a statement. “Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work.”