There is no doubt about it: In her recent novel, the Indian writer Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen copied long passages from "The Rosemary Tree," a novel published in 1956 by the English novelist Elizabeth Goudge. In fact, the novel, "Cranes' Morning" (Ballantine Books), is shockingly similar to "The Rosemary Tree," exactly identical in some parts except for certain cosmetic details.
For instance, Chapter 8 of "The Rosemary Tree" begins: "The morning dawned calm and lovely. From her bed Harriet could see the hills beyond the river, the woods and the sky." And Chapter 8 of "Cranes' Morning" begins: "The morning dawned calm and lovely. From her bed Vidya could see the hills beyond the river, the woods and the sky."What is not at all clear is what Aikath-Gyaltsen, who has been described as a free-lance journalist and hotel owner from a well-to-do family in India, hoped to accomplish.
Recently divorced, she died last year at the age of 41, before the book was to be published, and so cannot explain herself. Her publishers here and in England don't even know how she died, only that it was very sudden.
Claire M. Smith, a literary agent with Harold Ober Associates, which represents the Goudge estate's interests in the United States, said in an interview that she was at a loss to say whether Aikath-Gyaltsen had thought that nobody would notice what she had done, or whether - somehow and for some reason - she had hoped to be discovered.
"She might not have known that Elizabeth Goudge was as famous as she was 40 years ago," Smith said. "The only explanation I can think of was that she thought she had found an obscure, out-of-print book."
Goudge, who was quite successful in England, died in 1984 at the age of 84. "The Rosemary Tree" is out of print in the United States but still being published in England. Two readers - one in Canada, the other in New Hampshire - called and wrote to Goudge's publishers when they read "Cranes' Morning" and discovered the similarities.
"The plot seemed really familiar, and it was driving me nuts," said Kathy Frasier, a librarian in the Epsom and Pembroke public school systems in New Hampshire, who said she realized why about three-quarters of the way through the book. She said there was one big difference, though. "I don't know if she felt impatient toward the end, but she really speeded things up," Frasier said, speaking of Aikath-Gyaltsen.
"Cranes' Morning," Aikath-Gyaltsen's second novel, was originally published last year by Penguin India in New Delhi. Ballantine Books in the United States published it this year, in an edition that was also distributed in Canada; the company said that because of the evidence of plagiarism, it would stop selling and promoting the book.
In London, Maggie McKernan, an editor at the Orion Publishing Group, which bought the British rights to the book, said it had not yet decided whether to go ahead with publication.