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NEW YORK, Apr 25, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A 19-year-old Harvard sophomore whose newly released book is a hot seller says she unintentionally borrowed from another author's work.
A reader first noticed similarities in Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" and Megan McCafferty's "Sloppy Firsts," published in 2001.
Harvard's Crimson Web site cited 13 instances in which Viswanathan's book closely paralleled McCafferty's work, but the New York Times said there are at least 29 passages that are strikingly similar.
As lawyers for the two publishers are in discussions, Viswanathan said in an e-mail statement Monday she was "surprised and upset" by the similarities.
"I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized McCafferty's words," she said.
She also apologized to McCafferty and said that future printings of the novel would be revised to "eliminate any inappropriate similarities."
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
