Fiction, autofiction or autobiography? Anthony Delon will publish his novel Bastingage

Actor Anthony Delon announced on Wednesday the publication at the end of March of an autobiographically inspired novel, while a dispute rages within his family concerning his father Alain Delon. “Released on March 27,” wrote Anthony Delon on Instagram, about this novel entitled Bastingage, published by Fayard.

“Anthony has produced a very beautiful novel, and it is absolutely not a fiction about his father and what he experienced,” Fayard CEO Isabelle Saporta told AFP. She was reacting to information from RTL radio, which noted all the points of resemblance between the life of the hero of Bastingage and that of its author. “I hear the buzz and I understand it. You can draw everything towards the autobiographical, and the problem when you are a novelist is that you are always read through this prism. But it’s unfair for Anthony, who tells something else, a love between a disturbed young woman, shattered by life, whom the hero tries to save for all he can,” she added.

On January 25, a guardianship judge placed Alain Delon, 88, very weakened by illness, under judicial protection so that a representative could determine “his medical follow-up”. Recluse in his property in Douchy, this legendary actor of French cinema is caught in the conflict between his children, who each swear to look out for their best interests.

Anthony, 59, and Alain-Fabien Delon, 29, want him to stay in this village. Anouchka Delon, 33, is pleading for him to be repatriated to Switzerland where, according to her, he would be looked after much better. In 2019, Alain-Fabien Delon also published an autobiographically inspired novel, “De la race des seigneurs”, where an apprentice actor could not emerge from the shadow of a father admired by all, but tyrannical in private.