Publishing, the Rules of the Trade

Il entrerait dans la légende

Louis Skorecki, Éditions Léo Scheer, original edition, 2002, Coll. Bfm - Limoges

Il entrerait dans la légende (2002) ‘recounts the inexorable course of a serial killer who is driven to crime by an absolute love of women and little girls’. Associations for the defence of children brought proceedings against Louis Skorecki and his publisher, Léo Scheer. At Carpentras, the prosecution demanded a 6-month suspended sentence and 15,000 euros fine for the publisher. The prosecution’s severe closing speech was deemed ‘scandalous’ by the League of Human Rights because it made a ‘dangerous confusion between reality and fiction’. The sentence was a fine of 7500€ but the book was not withdrawn from sale. Léo Scheer remarked, ‘It is not justice that we contest, but the law it is asked to apply. This judgement sets up a legal precedent that is dissuasive for most fiction publishers’. He believed that the law should be amended to defend a ‘literary exception’ more effectively. In 2003, Il entrerait dans la légende received the Sade prize for a book that ‘reaches beyond all political or moral oppression’.