‘Shake off the aura’: Novelist Amitabha Bagchi on originality and borrowing in literary writing
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As per Umberto Eco, “Books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.” Eco neglected to mention if books only speak of other books, and if it is okay if they do, or should the authors of books that largely speak of other books be hauled over the coals, indicted for their crime and given punishments that are less stringent than those handed out to common plagiarists, but are punishments nonetheless. Had he done so, we wouldn’t have to face the conundrum raised by Urdu novelist Asha’ar Najmi’s long piece (in Hindi) on Khalid Javed’s oeuvre whose thrust is that several of Javed’s wonderfully original-seeming ideas across five novels can be traced back to novelists, thinkers, graphic novelists and filmmakers from the West. The conundrum, stated plainly, is this: What constitutes originality in fiction? More specifically: If an author directly borrows ideas or settings from another author, wrapping them in his own setting and his own style, is that a form of fraud?
Inspiration or plagiarism?
If we transpose the question to academic writing, the answer is a clear yes. If there is an idea that is published in the literature and you present it as your own, that’s...