Plagiarism is in many ways soon to be a thing of the past, not in the sense that it will be eliminated but that it will be hard for a someone to get away with this practice. With programs that are able to search for similar items it is not hard for the person to be caught. While this will benefit areas like education and journalism, it can create problem in the world of literature.
Recently author Sadia Shepard has come under fire for her story Foreign-Returned after it was published in the New Yorker in January. Shepard was accused of plagarism after similarities were noticed between her story and The Ice Wagon Going Down The Street by Mavis Gallant. These accusations were brought forward by a group of readers led by author and professor Francine Prose.
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| Sadia Shepard |
The stories do have a similar concept running throughout them that being of people in a foreign land after a significant event. Gallant's story deals with Canadians in post second world war Austria and Shepard's deals with Pakistani's living in the midwest after the 2016 election. Now these similarities are not unnoticed by Shepard saying she owed "great debt" to Gallant. This did little to please her critics, with Prose saying that "Some phrases and sentences are mirrored with only a few words changed,". Shepard who was not pleased with Prose's statement went on to clarify what exactly she meant " use Gallant's classic story of self-exile in postwar Europe as a point of departure for an exploration of the immigrant experience of Pakistani Muslims in today's America,".
New Yorker author Jess Row also defended Shepard, by saying that the accusation itself of plagiarism "denies both Shepard and Gallant the respect they deserve". Shepard was not defended entirely as author Lincoln Michel thought that Gallant is famous enough for Shepard's work to directly mention that it was inspired by Gallant.
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