Ian McEwan: No Time For Atonement?

British Novelist Ian McEwan is fighting charges of copying/borrowing/lifting from No Time for Romance (1977), the memoirs of romantic novelist, Lucilla Andrews (1919 -- 2006) for use in his Booker-shortlisted novel, Atonement (2001).

The Times online (UK) has helped to make things clearer by "tabulating" the similarities:

Excerpts from Atonement (Ian McEwan)

“. . . she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion on a bruise . . .”

“. . . practising blanket baths on life-size models — Mrs Mackintosh, Lady Chase, and baby George whose blandly impaired physique allowed him to double as a baby girl.”

“These bandages are so tight. Will you loosen them for me a little . . .There’s a good girl . . . go and wash the blood from your face. We don’t want the other patients upset.”

Excerpts from No Time For Romance (Lucilla Andrews)

“Our ‘nursing’ seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, lead lotion on bruises and sprains.”

“. . . the life-size dolls on which decades of young Nightingale nurses had learnt to blanket bath. Mrs Mackintosh, Lady Chase and George, a baby boy of convenient physique to allow him to double as a baby girl.”

“Go and wash that blood off your face and neck . . . It’ll upset the patients.”

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Other famous writers accused of "borrowing" include

1) 2002 Booker prize winner Yann Martel

2) Pulitzer-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

3) Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan

4) South African writer Antjie Krog

5) 1996 Booker Winner Graham Swift

6) Chinua Achebe, accused by Professor Charles Nnolim of borrowing heavily from a historical pamphlet The History of Umuchu, for his novel, Arrow of God

7) Calixthe Bayela

8) Tony Blair/Downing Street

9) Most bloggers :)