Posted Tuesday, April 25, 2006, The OG, arts

The author of “Opal Mehta,” 19-year-old Kaavya Viswanathan, said on Monday that she had “internalized” passages from two novels she read while in high school and had repeated them unintentionally in her own book.

Harvard Crimson staff reporters Paras D. Bhayani and David Zhou provided the update in a story posted online early Tuesday morning. Here are some excerpts:

“Kaavya Viswanathan '08 admitted yesterday to borrowing language from two books by Megan F. McCafferty, though the student novelist said that ‘any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious.'

“In a statement released through her publisher, Little, Brown and Company, Viswanathan apologized to McCafferty and said that future printings of her recently-released novel, ‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' will be revised ‘to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.'

“She confirmed that she has read McCafferty's novels ‘Sloppy Firsts' and ‘Second Helpings,' though she said she ‘wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words.'

“But Random House, which published McCafferty's novels, is confident that ‘literal copying' occurred in Viswanathan's book, according to a confidential letter from the publishing giant to Little, Brown that was obtained by The Crimson.”

The Crimson article can be found here in its entirety.

Additional coverage in The New York Times can be found here.

— Gargoyle staff