Kaavya Viswanathan Accused Of Plagiarizing Meg Cabot's Work
In light of the new revelations that Kaavya Viswanathan apparently also plagiarized the work of bestselling author Meg Cabot (that makes three authors, if you're keeping score at home), Little, Brown has thrown up its hands in dismay and sensibly cancelled
Ms. Viswanathan's two book contract. The publisher will not be issuing a revised version of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, no doubt fearing that the rest of the book will turn out to have been cobbled together using passages from every author from Nora Roberts to Helen Fielding.
"Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of `How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract," Michael Pietsch, Little Brown's senior vice president and publisher, said in a statement.
Little, Brown, which had withdrawn the book last week, declined further comment. Tuesday's decision caps a stunning downfall for the 19-year-old Viswanathan, a Harvard sophomore with a reported six-figure book deal whose novel came out in March to widespread attention.
Viswanathan (prounounced Kah-vee-uh Viss-wahn-uh-thon), who was just 17 when she signed the deal, did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday.
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The Harvard Crimson, alerted by reader e-mails, reported Tuesday on its Web site that "Opal Mehta" contained passages similar to Meg Cabot's 2000 novel, "The Princess Diaries." The New York Times also reported comparable material in Viswanathan's novel and Sophie Kinsella's "Can You Keep a Secret?"
In Cabot's "The Princess Diaries," published by HarperCollins, the following passage appears on page 12: "There isn't a single inch of me that hasn't been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. ... Because I don't look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights."
In Viswanathan's book, page 59 reads: "Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn't look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn't own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat."
Note to aspiring plagiarists: in the Internet Age all plagiarists eventually get caught.
