stop thief: or, crime pays

Holy Kaavya Viswanathan, it's happened again. A German writer whose debut novel is up for a major award has been caught plagiarizing. Same old story? Not quite. The much-praised writer is 17, for one thing. Also, the judges of the major award were aware of the plagiarism before they shortlisted her, and don't seem to care about it.

Her excuse? "There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity." She blames a generational culture of sampling, mixing and appropriating, although "blames" is the wrong word. Attributes, maybe? No, too ironic, considering she failed to credit the novelist, Airen, whose writing she liberated.

Oh, by the way? Not just a few lines. Not just a metaphor here or there. Full pages.

Ms. Hegemann finds herself in the middle of a collision — if not road kill exactly — between the staid, literary establishment in a country that venerates writers from Goethe to Mann to Grass, and the Berlin youth culture of D.J.’s and artists that sample freely and thereby breathe creativity into old forms. Or as one character, Edmond, puts it in the book, “Berlin is here to mix everything with everything.”

A powerful statement, but the line originally was written by Airen, on his blog. The plot thickens, however, and shows that perhaps more than simple cribbing is at work. When another character asks Edmond if he came up with that line himself, he replies, “I help myself everywhere I find inspiration.” (NY Times)

Man. That's brazen.