Kaavya Viswanathan Plagiarism Continues… | Women Lifestyle, Fashion, Health, Beauty and Personality

Kaavya Viswanathan Plagiarism Continues…
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Kaavya Viswanathan became a teenage sensation as she continues to repeat her apology in interviews and getting a six-figure deal for her first novel by the time she entered Harvard and selling the movie rights to Hollywood.
“I really thought the words were my own. I guess it’s just been in my head. I feel as confused as anyone about it, because it happened so many times,” said Kaavya, speaking to media.
Kaavya Viswanathan found literary stardom last year at the age of 17 when publisher Little Brown paid her US$500,000 in a two-book deal. Those in New York’s highly competitive literary world feel that even if she survives this, it will leave a permanent scar on her future.

Her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life has been accused of lifting passages and scenes from Megan McCafferty’s first two books, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. Viswanathan has been forced to admit that she unintentionally borrowed sections from another novelist for her book, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.”
McCafferty’s publisher, Random House, said in a leaked letter that it believes “some literal copying actually occurred here.” McCafferty, a former editor at Cosmopolitan whose first two books have sold 300,000 copies, said that she had found “passages, characters and plot points in common.”

Viswanathan, who was born in Chennai and raised in Scotland before her parents migrated to America, is the most scrutinised author and student in the US following her admission that she had ‘internalized’ some passages for her novel from two-bestselling novels she read when she was in high school.
She has taken a few days off from Harvard after making a brief appearance on the NBC television channel’s popular Today show, telling its hosts: ‘When I was writing, I genuinely believed each word was my own.’

Her book is based on her experiences of a college “boot camp” designed to prepare her for admission to Harvard. In the book, the studious heroine is told by a Harvard admissions offer to “raise her life quotient.” Opal’s parents decide she must swot up on all-American activities such as flirting, pop music and fashion and devise a plan called HOWGAL or How Opal Will Get a Life.
Harvard Crimson, her student newspaper, reported that she had become the “target of an inspired private butchering” by her peers. But this week it printed 13 passages that were suspiciously similar to McCafferty’s books. One 14-word section seems to come verbatim from “Sloppy Firsts.”

McAfferty’s publicist says that the process of rewriting a new edition could take months during which the current edition of Opal Mehta would remain on the stands, so they are likely to ask for the book to be pulled out immediately.
Everything now hinges on whether her agents and publishers stand by her side. For now, Little Brown and Company who published her book has said that it will not pull the current edition from the stores, and neither will it sue Kaavya for a breach of contract.

Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act,’ a statement from Random House said.
The Boston Globe newspaper reported that Steve Ross, senior vice-president and publisher, Crown while not saying if Random House has asked Little Brown to pull out Viswanathan’s novel, told the newspaper: ‘Our lawyers are reviewing all options.’
The news is apparently helping sales of the book, the Globe discovered. On Monday it was ranked 178 on Amazon.com; on Wednesday it was 68. It has reportedly sold about 5,000 copies across the country. Ross said the plagiarism has devastated McCafferty, adding she is ‘not sleeping, not eating.’