Nov
27
2006
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. :)
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)?