In the last thirty years, many French novels have evoked the national past. The Vichy regime and the Nazi occupation inspired various particularly intense works. Thanks to its extreme plasticity, literary fiction has proved a very effective tool to understand the atmosphere of that period. This trend, that began developing in the Eighties, has not ceased at the beginning of the present century. Three books, published respectively in 2004, 2005 and 2006, testify to the fascination still exerted over writers by those dark years: "Le Corps noir" by Dominique Manotti, "Lutetia" by Pierre Assouline, "Itinéraire d’un salaud ordinaire" by Didier Daeninckx. In these novels, the approach to the events aims to reduce the distance of the narrative from the experience. It is a purpose formerly underrated by professional historians, now shared by some of them. This article analyzes the technical and thematic means employed by these works to reproduce the complexity of historical facts.
