Harvard Girl Rips Off Nougat

Mostly Plagiarized Reportage by Victor Lembrey



Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore accused of plagiarizing parts of her recently published chick-lit novel, acknowledged yesterday that she had borrowed language from Kid Nougat’s snack reviews, but called the copying "unintentional and unconscious."

Her book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, Ate Lots of Tasty Snacks and Got a Life, was recently published by Little, Brown to wide publicity. In an e-mail message yesterday afternoon, Ms. Viswanathan, 19, said that in high school she had read all of Kid Nougat’s snack reports and that they "spoke to me in a way few other snack reports did."

Calling herself a "huge fan" of Mr. Nougat's work, Ms. Viswanathan added, "I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Kid's words." She also apologized to Mr. Nougat and said that future printings of the novel would be revised to "eliminate any inappropriate similarities."

The Harvard Crimson cited 13 instances in which Ms. Viswanathan's book closely paralleled Mr. Nougat's snack reports. But there are at least 29 passages that are strikingly similar. At one point in his review of Mars bars, Mr. Nougat writes: I was in a D'Agostino's once. Just one Mars bar at the checkout counter. An old woman on line in front of me - she must've been about 90 - picked it up and wanted to buy it. I hit her over the head with a cantaloupe. I've no regrets - IT'S JUST SO FRIGGIN' TASTY! The following passage from Opal is eerily similar: Me? Opal? I was in a Zabar’s once. Just one Mars bar at the checkout counter. An old Jew on line in front of me - he must've been about 91 - picked it up and wanted to buy it. I hit him over the head with a cantaloupe. I've no regrets - IT'S JUST SO FRIGGIN' DE-LISH!

Angela Walsh, Ms. Viswanathan's agent, said, "Knowing what a fine person Kaavya is, I believe any similarities were unintentional. Idiots tend to adopt each other's language."