insights from four foreign publishers

Among the Anglo-Saxons

“American and English novelists sometimes draw inspiration from their personal story but they transform it completely – otherwise they call it “autobiography” or “memoir”. Above all, they take inspiration from outside, from society as a whole. From a Protestant culture, they are more modest, less inclined to confessions.

Francis Geffard, director of the collection “Lands of America» at Albin Michel.

In Eastern Europe

“Many works take the family as their subject, some in lazy autofiction, others with audacity, like the Hungarian Peter Nadas, with What shines in the darkness, or the Polish poet, Malgorzata Lebda, of whom we publish Voracious, in January 2026 , about a young woman’s relationship with her dying grandmother.

Does this mean that the authors only write that? No. Literary agents – who sell the rights of foreign authors in France – are more likely to offer family stories to a country that already produces a lot of them! And the great works continue, as with the Polish Olga Tokarczuk or the Romanian Mircea Cartarescu.”

David Bosc, editor at Noir sur Blanc.

Among the Brazilians…

“We are witnessing a real craze for autofiction and family stories in the Afro-Brazilian community. Descendants of black cooks and servants who were able to access university write testimonies, which are also political messages: Conceiçao Evaristo with Banzo, memories of the favela or Djamila Ribeiro for Your magic has brought me this far.

As in other countries that have experienced dictatorship, the search for missing relatives exists; Guiomar de Grammont thus relates the quest for his lost brother in The shadows of Araguaia.»

Paula Anacaona, director of Anacaona editions

In the Portuguese-speaking sphere

“A very literary subject, the lineage runs through the novels. But authors often use fiction, even when the inspiration is very personal, as with the Mozambican Mia Couto, who tells a story inspired by the relationship with her father, an actor in decolonization, in The absence mapper. Or the Portuguese Lidia Jorge, in Misericordia, a tribute to his mother nourished by fantasy.”

Nicolas Rodriguez Galvis, editor at Métailié