Booker Award Nominee Inspired or Plagiarist
By Jane • Nov 27th, 2006 • Category: Publishing News • •Ian McEwan, nominee of the Booker Award for his novel, Atonement, has been accused of copying Lucilla Andrews’ work. Ms. Andrews wrote an autobiographical novel, No Time for Romance, of her work nursing injured soldiers druing World War II. McEwen’s female protagonist has similar experiences as the ones related in Andrews’ book.
Andrews wrote several fictional hospital/medical romances and was a founding member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I guess I like the idea that an award winning novelist was inspired by a romance novelist. :)
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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McEwan also won the Booker Prize in 1998 for his novel Amsterdam. Incidentally, I have Atonement in my TBR pile. Maybe I should review it here?
I just looked for No Time for Romance on Amazon. There is a large print copy listed there but the price is over two thousand dollars!
There is another article posted online at the Times with a couple of similar passages compared at the end. Research vs. plagiarism: where’s the line, especially if the author acknowledges a source (vaguely as McEwan apparently did Andrews)?