Roman à clef - Vocabulary!

Roman à clef

From Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia:

"A roman à clef or roman à clé (French for "novel with a key") is a novel describing real-life events behind a facade of fiction.

The reasons an author might choose the roman à clef format include:

• Satire
  
• Writing about controversial topics and/or reporting inside information on scandals without giving rise to charges of libel
  
• The opportunity to turn the tale the way the author would like it to have gone."