Presumably, as an artist Boilet is allowed to share his view of the world… unless members of his privileged group are not allowed to be artists for awhile as some form of reparations.

Note also that if he tried to pull this formal stunt using a narrator less like himself, he would almost inevitably be accused of getting the other race/sex/religion/orientation all wrong, and appropriating another group’s identity for the purposes of his own story. Look at all the trouble Gail Simone’s had with regard to her writing for Ryan Choi.

I also noticed that Santoro says later on in the comments thread that it might not bother him as much if the woman in the story were also French, as opposed to Japanese and supposedly representing the exotic other. There’s a disturbing subtext there; it almost seems like he’s attacking the legitimacy not only of the artistic choice, but (assuming the story to be at least somewhat autobiographical) the relationship itself. I can’t see what basis there would be for that, other than a general sense that all interracial relationships are okay *except* for those between European men and women of other races.