roman à clef

n., pl., ro·mans à clef (rōmäN' zä klā').
A novel in which actual persons, places, or events are depicted in fictional guise.

[French : roman, novel + à, with + clef, key.]

(ro-mahn ah KLAY)

noun, plural romans a clef
A novel that depicts (usually famous) real people and events under the guise of fiction.

Etymology
From French roman à clef, literally, a novel with a key

All fiction has a grain of truth, but a roman a clef has it by the bushel. Roman a clef dates back to seventeenth century France. In the beginning, a roman a clef really did have a key that was published separately. In these times, you can simply go on the Internet and search using Google. An example of roman a clef is Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
These days the term can apply to any work of fiction, for example, a movie, not just a novel. A blend term "faction" has also been used, after "fact" presented as "fiction".

Usage
"[Geraldine] Brooks has borrowed details not just from Little Women but from the story of Alcott's own extraordinary father, Bronson Alcott, a man whose freethinking, utopian views were all downplayed in his daughter's roman a clef." — Michelle Griffin; March; Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Apr 2, 2005.

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For more information on roman à clef, visit Britannica.com.

roman à clef [roh‐mahⁿ a klay], the French term (‘novel with a key’) for a kind of novel in which the well‐informed reader will recognize identifiable persons from real life thinly disguised as fictional characters. A significant English example is Thomas Love Peacock's satirical novel Nightmare Abbey (1818), in which ‘Mr Flosky’ is clearly the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Mr Cypress’ is Lord Byron, and ‘Scythrop’ is Percy Bysshe Shelley. Very many novels based upon their authors' own lives are to some degree romans à clef.

(roh-mahn ah klay)

A novel in which actual people and places are disguised as fictional characters. Roman à clef is French for “novel with a key.”