Kaavya Vishwanathan – the new Indian phenom bomb on the writing scene!
Excerpted from the latest update here on NY Times. (registration may be required).
A day after Kaavya Viswanathan admitted copying parts of her chick-lit novel, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,” from another writer's works, the publisher of the two books she borrowed from called her apology “troubling and disingenuous.”
On Monday, Ms. Viswanathan, in an e-mail message, said that her copying from Megan McCafferty's “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings,” both young adult novels published by Crown, a division of Random House, had been “unintentional and unconscious.”
The “unintentional and unconscious” is a nice spin, considering her initial comment to the Harvard Crimson which first broke the story: … Viswanathan said, “… I have no idea what you are talking about.”
In an earlier NY Times article celebrating the impending release of the book, here is how their piece ended:
Ms. Viswanathan's own parents have been intent on giving her a book party when she gets home from college this summer. “They wanted to have a red carpet strewn with rose petals,” she said, her voice rising. “And I've just woken up and I'm still in my pajamas and my mom will call, and she'll say like, 'Kaavya, would you prefer pink or white rose petals?' “
Slightly premature.
Arun Shanbhag 
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