Enric Marco: the avatars of the imposter portrayed by Javier Cercas

Abstract

Enric Marco made it to the headlines when it was revealed that his story as a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps was sustained lie over time for decades. Decorated, renowned, respected and even idolized: Marco had achieved social success and indisputable popularity with his speech as a victim, which falls apart after knowing the reality. As a chameleon-like character who managed to be someone else, Marco has generated interest and fascination in the society: this article focuses on the conception of the fictionalized Enric Marco, not by himself, but by others. To do this, the article presents Marco's vision constructed from the book El impostor, published by Javier Cercas in 2014, and the appearance of a profile on the social network Twitter that had its period of greatest activity between years 2013 and 2014. To build this approach, in these pages we also present an overview of related cases to better understand the chameleon-like characters in fiction and in reality; moreover, among those real cases special attention is devoted to examples linked to Spain. This way, the article approaches Enric Marco from a multiple identity taxonomy: the authentic, the imposter, the faked and the portrayed Enric.