Falsifiers – Wikipedia

Falsifiers is a novel by Antoine Bello, published in 2007. It recounts the ascent of an Icelandic young, Sliv Dartunghover, in the ranks of an international secret organization, the “consortium of falsification of reality” (CFR).

Sliv’s adventures continue in Scouts , published in 2009, then in The producers , published in 2015, which closes the triptych.

At the end of his geography studies, the Icelandic Sliv Dartunghover is hired in an expertise in environmental studies. After a first mission (somewhat boring) in Greenland, his boss tells him that the cabinet is also a coverage for an international secret company called Consortium for Falsification of Real and offers to join the club. The CFR as its name suggests rewrites history, falsifying sources. Invent a film that has never existed, a historical event, an animal species, an African tribe. Sliv hesitates. What is the purpose of the CFR, its financing, its motivations? He will have to accept not to know everything. But he cannot resist temptation, because he is a player and loves to invent the most unlikely stories. But at the CFR write a good scenario, original and inventive, is not enough. It is still necessary that the scenario is in accordance with the three-year plan of the CFR and above all know how to traffic the corresponding sources (rewrite the book of an anthropologist, insert an article in an old newspaper, falsify the civil status, etc.). The novel recounts its first years of career: its successes, its failures, its questions, its disillusions.

• Sliv Dartunghover: Icelandic, born in 1968. Adhered to the CFR in 1991, where he reached the rank of class 3 agent at the end of Falsificateurs . Exceptional screenwriter, he won the prize for the best first file in 1993. Graduated from the Academy (Special Operations) in 1998. lost his father at the age of 10. Her mother lives in Husavik, where she raises sheep. A sister, Mathilde, who lives in Germany.
• Lena Thorsen: Danish; Slightly older than Sliv, which she preceded on the antenna of Reykjavik. Joined the CFR in 1989. Released from the Academy in 1998, also in special operations. Described by Gunnar Eriksson as one of the most gifted falsifying of his generation.
• Youssef Khrafedine: Sudanese, a little older than Sliv of which he is the best friend. Of great intellectual honesty but sometimes also slightly dogmatic, Youssef lives particularly badly of his ignorance of the purpose of the CFR. He fears to be manipulated and work against his convictions (especially religious). Gets engaged with Maga at the end of Falsificateurs . Enter the Academy in 1997, from which he will come out in the body of the plan.
• Magawati Donogurai: Indonesian, a little older than Sliv. Very brilliant, she is undoubtedly within the CFR the agent of which Sliv feels closest. Enter the Academy in 1997, from which it will release special operations in the body. Engaged with Youssef. Their divergent views of thorny subjects (especially the place of women in Islam) are the cause of frequent arms passes, of which Sliv remains cautiously away.
• Gunnar Eriksson: Icelandic, fifties. Recruited Lena then Sliv at Baldur, Furuset & Thorberg and at CFR. Although occupying a very low hierarchical position within the CFR, Gunnar seems to enjoy a special aura in the eyes of its leaders. Very attached to his native Iceland. Panchants marked hedonists.
• Angoua Djibo: Cameroonian. The fifties. Director of the plan and as such a member of the CFR Executive Committee. Extraordinarily charismatic, Djibo is nonetheless a formidable political animal. He takes SLIV in affection and regularly requests it on delicate missions.
• Yakoub khoyoulfaz: azéri, Il est lee Director of special operations And as such, is a member of the CFR Executive Committee.

Falsifiers , which was translated in half a dozen languages, received an almost unanimous favorable critical reception.
According to Joan Fontcuberta, Antoine Bello, in this novel, “intelligently led from the obsessions of anything less than Borges, Philip K. Dick and John Le Carré”; He “dissects a whole methodology in the way of making news and implanting a set of opinions in a given section of the population […] in short, Bello offers a feast to the paranoid amateurs of conspiracy theories” ^{[ first ]} .

In an interview with Baptiste Liger ( L’Express ), Bello explains that he wanted to write a parable on history. “Everyone knows that it is written by the winners. However, the defeated today are the winners of tomorrow, and the story is therefore doomed to be rediscovered. The advent of electronic media also poses a lot of questions: it has never been so easy to learn, and it was never so easy to disinform. »» ^{[ 2 ]}

William Burroughs, in First is more mixed: ” Falsifiers is a novel that we cannot refuse and that we devour because we are forced (because we have been programmed for) and because it is very good. But it is also a big novel that follows with the means of “general literature”, which we have already read for ten, twenty or thirty years (and better) at, Silverberg, or Philip K. Dick, less paranoid anxiety. »» ^{[ 3 ]}

Falsifiers Described with ten years in advance the phenomenon of fake news which, among other things, surrounded the Donald Trump campaign. In an article for the magazine Slate , Jacques Besnard deciphers the mechanisms at work in the production of a credible scenario: a storytelling flattering prejudices, a certain sense of timing, the support of powerful opinion relay, etc. ^{[ 4 ]}