Berkley Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group, said it was canceling Angel at the Fence, The True Story of a Love that Survived after writer Herman Rosenblat admitted to his agent Andrea Hurst that he had invented part of the book.Rosenblat, 79, appeared twice on Oprah's TV show to tell a story about meeting his wife when she threw apples to him over a fence at a Nazi concentration camp in Germany but it transpired he made up the story for a newspaper contest about a decade ago.
"Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work," said Berkley Books spokesman Craig Burke in a statement.
Rosenblat's agent Andrea Hurst said in a statement that the writer had revealed to her that he invented the crux of the love story in which he claimed he met his wife when he was a teenage prisoner in a camp at Schlieben, Germany, and she threw him food.
He wrote that after the war he moved to New York and by chance met Polish immigrant Roma Radzicki who turned out to be the girl who threw him food. They fell in love and got married.
Hurst said Rosenblat's story about being in the concentration camps and the survival of the writer and his brothers was true but the retired electrical contractor from North Miami Beach, Florida, had made up the love story that had won such attention.
"Like millions of others who read this story or saw Herman and Roma on Oprah, I never for a moment questioned the authenticity of the widely circulated story," said Hurst.
"I know that everyone who has worked so hard with Herman this past year is as stunned and disappointed as I am that this story of hope has such a sad ending." Polish-born Rosenblat could not be contacted for comment. The memoir, due to be published in February, came under public scrutiny after several scholars in The New Republic challenged the book.