Kaavya's second helping of shame

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Keywords: Book, Megan McCafferty

New Delhi: After being withdrawn from US markets, the Indian distributor of Kaavya Viswanathan's debut novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed Got Wild and Got A Life, Penguin India has also been directed to recall all copies of the book from Indian stores.

Viswanathan's debut novel has been tarnished by plagiarism charges and Penguin India, received a message from the US-based publisher Little, Brown on Friday night that the book should be withdrawn from all Indian bookstores.

"We got a communication from Little, Brown that the book has to be withdrawn from Indian markets," Penguin India spokesperson Hemali Sodhi said.

Penguin India will ask the retailers to return the copies on Saturday.

COO, Bahri Son Booksellers/Publishers, Anuj Bahri Malhotra, says, "If the book has to sell it will sell in the next two days, whether pulled back or not. Till the time the directive comes, we will sell. For us it is not an illegal book."

Readers to have had their say in the matter.

Says,Nirupama Singh an avid book reader, "If people write or produce something, with their own ideas, it's important to them just as our work is important to us. It does not befit them. I don't think it's really fair."

Around 10,000 copies of the book, which made headlines for the record advance amount Viswanathan bagged, have already been distributed to retailers by Penguin in India, Sodhi said.

The publishers of the book have agreed to withdraw the book from the US market and asked retailers to return all copies following allegations of plagiarism.

Similarities were reported between the teenage author's debut novel and Megan F McCafferty's novels Sloppy Firsts (published in 2001) and Second Helping (published in 2003).

Expressing apologies to McCafferty and "anyone who felt they have been misled by these unintentional errors", Kaavya had said earlier this week said "while the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalised McCafferty's words."

(With inputs from PTI)