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Harvard Novelist Says Copying Was Unintentional

Dinitia Smith in the Times: Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore accused of plagiarizing parts of her recently published chick-lit novel, acknowledged yesterday that she had borrowed language from another writer's books, but called the copying "unintentional and unconscious."

The book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," was recently published by Little, Brown to wide publicity. On Sunday, The Harvard Crimson reported that Ms. Viswanathan, who received $500,000 as part of a deal for "Opal" and one other book, had seemingly plagiarized language from two novels by Megan McCafferty, an author of popular young-adult books.

In an e-mail message yesterday afternoon, Ms. Viswanathan, 19, said that in high school she had read the two books she is accused of borrowing from, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," and that they "spoke to me in a way few other books did."

"Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,' and passages in these books," she said.

Calling herself a "huge fan" of Ms. McCafferty's work, Ms. Viswanathan added, "I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words." She also apologized to Ms. McCafferty and said that future printings of the novel would be revised to "eliminate any inappropriate similarities."

Michael Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown, said that Ms. Viswanathan planned to add an acknowledgment to Ms. McCafferty in future printings of the book.

In her e-mail message, Ms. Viswanathan said that "the central stories of my book and hers are completely different." But Ms. McCafferty's books, published by Crown, a division of Random House, are, like Ms. Viswanathan's, about a young woman from New Jersey trying to get into an Ivy League college — in her case, Columbia. (Ms. Viswanathan's character has her sights set on Harvard.) Like the heroine of "Opal," Ms. McCafferty's character, Jessica Darling, visits the campus, strives to earn good grades to get in and makes a triumphant high school graduation speech.

And the borrowings may be more extensive than have previously been reported. The Crimson cited 13 instances in which Ms. Viswanathan's book closely paralleled Ms. McCafferty's work. But there are at least 29 passages that are strikingly similar. ...

It was unclear whether Harvard would take any action against Ms. Viswanathan. "Our policies apply to work submitted to courses," said Robert Mitchell, the director of communications for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. "Nevertheless, we expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times."

Ms. Walsh, the agent, said: "Knowing what a fine person Kaavya is, I believe any similarities were unintentional. Teenagers tend to adapt each other's language."

It's odd, I feel like there's an element of racism in this article. Both something about the tone, and in what people say.

I don't know, it's like it's a little too easy for the Times, Megan McCafferty, and the Harvard administrator to believe this young Indian American girl who came out of nowhere just copied an older white woman.

Besides which, most young authors, while finding their own voices, sound an awful lot like their major influences. The Times article is utterly lacking in context, which seems odd given how much issues of plagiarism have been in the news recently.

Would the article read the same and the quotes be similar if someone accused a young precocious white girl of copying an older Indian American novelist?

I think not. There's very much an element of what does this Indian American girl know about writing chick lit anyway. Like her only entree would be by cheating. It all fits so easily with our meta-myths that Asian countries just copy, or pirate, the work of Americans. The Japanese are always portrayed as great at copying, the Chinese great at ripping off, the Indians great at doing the backroom work.

Of course, America owns the bulwarks of our civilization--gunpowder, movable type and money--to the Chinese, but never mind that (just imagine if the Irish had invented that trio, there'd be even more How the Irish Save Civilization-type tomes out there!)

At any rate, I'm sure Viswanathan will be cleared, by a court of law if not in the eyes of the Times/McCafferty/Harvard administrator. The one similarity cited by the Times doesn't seem that similar to me--besides which, as Viswanathan's agent says, teens soak up the world around them like sponges anyway. Which is only fair, given how much advertisers and hipsters-wanna-bes steal from teens.

If anything, maybe McCafferty should be questioned about where she gets her dialogue from.

Photo of Kaavya Viswanathan by Jodi Hilton for the Times.