Copy Writer

If everyone didn8217;t already know who Kaavya Viswanathan, the eighteen-year-old Literary Sensation With Massive Advance, was before, there8217;s no chance that anyone is unaware of her now.

Written by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

April 29, 2006 12:00 AM IST

3 min read

IF everyone didn8217;t already know who Kaavya Viswanathan, the eighteen-year-old Literary Sensation With Massive Advance, was before, there8217;s no chance that anyone is unaware of her now. So you have this chick, presumptuous young woman at Harvard who, as part of her application process drafted out some short stories, and then was spotted by an agent who passed her on to a publisher. One movie contract later, you have a media sensation, especially in India, where we lauded our desi counterpart, complete with doting family 8212; father who sends her news clippings and reviews and obsessively Googles her name. It helps also that she8217;s attractive.

Enter Player Two, Megan McCafferty, the author of some, not terribly popular, but not relatively obscure either, books. McCafferty8217;s readers pick up Viswanathan8217;s books and notice no less than 35 similarities between the two books, some going so far as to quote exact lines. They throw a fuss, McCafferty, belonging as she does to the Land That Loves To Sue, threatens to take Little, Brown, Viswanathan8217;s publishers to court. Viswanathan then apologises publicly, saying she may have 8216;8216;inadvertently copied8217;8217; some of the lines, but like it was totally not her fault, because she loved McCafferty8217;s books and could everyone please just leave her alone now?

FOUR days later, Viswanathan8217;s books are pulled from bookstores nationwide, her fancy London promotion tour is cancelled and Random House, McCafferty8217;s publisher, tells the Harvard Crimson, the people who broke the plagiarising story in the first place, that Viswanathan8217;s explanation is 8216;8216;deeply troubling and disingenuous.8217;8217; Smugly, McCafferty after rejecting the apology as 8216;8216;simply too many instances of 8216;borrowing8217; for this to have been unintentional8217;8217; also tells the Crimson that she is first and foremost a writer and hopes to 8216;8216;move on and that Ms Viswanathan will too.8217;8217; No word from Viswanathan at this point, so this is where it stands.

But wait. An extract from McCafferty8217;s blog says 8216;8216;Charmed Thirds her new book made the NYT extended hardcover best-seller list for the second week 5/7 in a row. I can8217;t help but mention that this list reflects sales for last week. Before. You know..8217;8217; Viswanathan8217;s book has shot up too, says a report in Rediff, from 178 to 68 on Amazon.

In the same report, Viswanathan8217;s plagiarism is being examined by Harvard to see what they should do about her. She was pretty clear that they wouldn8217;t really care, because it was a 8216;8216;genuine mistake8217;8217; but according to Robert Mitchell of Harvard8217;s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 8216;8216;Harvard College takes any accusation of plagiarism very seriously. And we certainly investigate accusations of plagiarism when brought to our attention. However, our policy does not permit us to discuss individual situations. We expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times.8217;8217; Viswanathan has not been allowed to comment to the press, by her publishers.

Phew, quite a sordid little tale. Was it an elaborate publicity strategy, as unlikely as that seems, or deliberate copying by someone who wanted to hurry up and finish their book before graduating, or really, a genuine mistake? It8217;s the best thing that could have happened to McCafferty though.

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