roman

Titled “Fiesta” in drafts, the novel is a roman à clef through and through, a story that may have been news across the Atlantic but rang clear as a church bell through the Latin Quarter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

They call their anonymous frontperson “Vessel” and backing band by roman numerals.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2025

“Did elon musk just hit the roman salute at his inauguration speech?”

From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2025

Every year, the workshop produces hundreds of smaller “bulls,” with roman candles for horns that are carried on someone’s shoulders through the streets of countless small towns in Mexico, sending kids skittering in delight.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 9, 2024

Will held the watch in his hand and looked down at the white face, the black roman numerals, and the skinny second hand ticking forward in a steady, jerking beat.

From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef.

From Slate ● Dec. 11, 2020

“I’m sad that this is what America demands as entertainment. We’re the romans, cheering for the lions. ‘Are you not entertained?’”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2019

She added that “The Love Machine” was “not exactly a literary work. But in its own little sub-category of popularly written romans à clef, it shines, like a rhinestone in a trash can.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 9, 2019

That “lunacy” is evidenced, for example, by Hester’s efforts to make romantic romans à clef out of Murdoch’s books.

From The New Yorker ● May 10, 2016

The epics of chivalry, whether of the cycles of Charlemagne, Arthur, or the classic heroes, not to mention the miscellaneous romans d’aventures, have indeed more than held their own.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various