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The article focuses on the writer Laura Albert, whose career and life collapsed when she signed a motion picture contract under her pen name of JT LeRoy, after publishing what she purported to be autobiographical works by LeRoy. The exposure of the literary fraud has left Albert bankrupt. She lives in San Francisco, California with her young son. Her friendship with television producer David Milch is Alberts' sole connection to her past life.

The article discusses a hoax perpetrated against British writer A. N. Wilson. Wilson's biography of poet John Betjeman included a letter which was supposed to support Wilson's assertion of a love affair, however the letter proved to include a cleverly hidden insult aimed at Wilson and its origins cannot be traced.

Geoffrey Knoop, a central figure in the case of the mysterious writer J. T. Leroy, has revealed that his partner Laura Albert wrote under the name J. T. Leroy. Knoop's sister, Savannah Knoop, was unmasked as the public face of Leroy by "The New York Times." Knoop said he played an important role in creating Leroy. Albert conducted telephone conversations with editors, celebrities and writers as Leroy, who developed a cult literary following. Knoop said that he and Albert have separated, mostly due to the stress of the deception. Knoop's statements may help solve this bizarre literary fraud.

Foreign POLAND'S MOVE TOWARD [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrei Makine, one of France's most celebrated novelists, whose books, including ''Dreams of My Russian Summers,'' have been translated into English, revealed this week that he has published four novels under the name Gabriel Osmonde, the newspaper Le Figaro reported. Mr. Makine, a Franco-Russian author who was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1995, was ''leading a literary double life,'' Le Figaro said. He kept the secret for more than 10 years; Osmonde never showed himself in public and even one of his publishers, Albin Michel, said he had never seen or spoken to him. A prolific author often compared to Chekhov and known for his limpid French prose, Mr. Makine has used the pen name since 2001 to write novels about the world's cruelty and the human quest for transcendence. The fourth, ''Alternaissance,'' was published in March. In France critics and publishers had speculated for years about the author's identity. Mr. Makine came clean about writing under the other name after a French scholar said publicly that excerpts from one Osmonde book had been inspired by ''Dreams of My Russian Summers.'' Explaining the need for a pen name, Mr. Makine told Le Figaro: ''I wanted to create someone who lived far from the hurly-burly of the world.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hears anguished commentary about how Bernard Madoff's gargantuan fraud epitomizes the self-defeating excess of high-tech finance -- his fall the embodiment of the fall of modern capitalism. But while $50 billion is a lot of money to defraud, there's nothing particularly modern about Mr. Madoff's ethics or technique. Ponzi schemes are among the oldest in the books, long preceding the stamp arbitrage scam engineered in the 1920s by Charles Ponzi, who gave the fraud its name. They have been practiced by hundreds of scammers across the world. And they usually end badly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN a scandal that's sending shock waves through both the publishing industry and academia, the author Franz Kafka has been revealed to be a fraud. '''The Metamorphosis' -- purported to be the fictional account of a man who turns into a large cockroach -- is actually non-fiction,'' according to a statement released by Mr. Kafka's editor, who spoke only on the condition that he be identified as E. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One day after the author of ''Love and Consequences'' confessed that she had made up the memoir about her supposed life as a foster child in gang-infested South-Central Los Angeles, the focus turned to her publisher and the news organizations that helped publicize what appeared to be a searing autobiography. Geoffrey Kloske, publisher of Riverhead Books, the unit of Penguin Group USA that released the book, by Margaret Seltzer, under a pseudonym, Margaret B. Jones, said on Tuesday that there was nothing else that he or Sarah McGrath, the book's editor, could have done to prevent the author from lying. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article shares the criticism of the author on the literary scandals in the U.S.

The article reports on the admission of James Frey, the author of the best-selling memoirs entitled "A Million Little Pieces," that he made up details of his life and his recovery from addiction which were detailed in his book.

The article focuses on some of the inadvertent errors, omissions and elisions of the best selling memoir "A Brief History of Tim," by Tim Carvell.

Reviews 'Fakes, Forgeries and Facsimiles,' an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Observation that Shakespearean fraud can be good material for comedy; Examples of fraudulent manuscripts; Deals in which Henry C. Folger, the library's founder, was tricked; Mention of forger John Payne Collier, who never confessed to his forgeries; Controversial exhibits.

Focuses on a controversy on book-making with reference to the allegations that fiction writer Melissa Bank had plucked a piece of the life of playwright and filmaker Judith Keller, and turned it into a short story that was included in the book collection `The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing.' History of writing literary works; Legal issues on appropriating stories of another individual.