Roundup: April Fools’ Day! The Literary Hoax
In our Roundups segment, we’re looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. We explore posts from our archives as well as other top literary magazines, centered on a certain theme to help you jump-start your week. This week we have posts on literary hoaxes.
We promise this post contains no hoaxes. It’s not a joke, like this infamous stunt pulled on April Fools’ Day in 2001 in Copenhagen regarding their new metro system:
All fake train wrecks aside, there have been many literary hoaxes over the years (yes, you’ve been fooled, this post contains many hoaxes). Which ones have you fallen for?
From Ploughshares:
- Laugh it up with last year’s post “April Fools: Some Funny Novels (Seriously, That’s What the Post Is About).”
- Another type of prank: flash mobs. Rachel Kadish asks, “Why don’t we literary folks do this?”
From Around the Web:
- A few years ago The Huffington Post rounded up their top literary hoaxes of all time, featuring fraud and fake authors.
- The New York Times reflects on one of the raunchiest literary hoaxes ever, Naked Came the Stranger, by Mike McGrady.
- Dating back to The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, The Museum of Hoaxes offers a comprehensive, chronological list of literary hoaxes.
- Lit Drift seeks to abolish the term “literary hoax” in their article “Literary Hoaxes Don’t Exist Thanks to Postmodernism.”
What are your favorite literary hoaxes? Use the comments section below to add your pick, or to start a hoax of your own…
