LITERATURE-SPAIN: Plagiarism Case Reawakens “Authors’ ” Nightmare

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct 24 2000 (IPS) - á- The plagiarism allegedly committed by a popular Spanish journalist in her first novel has, as a secondary effect, exposed the reach of “ghostwriters,” those who author works that are signed by others.

Spain’s weekly magazine ‘Interviú’ revealed in a recent issue that renowned journalist Ana Rosa Quintana, host of the television programme “Sabor a ti” (Taste of You), plagiarised entire paragraphs from a novel by a US author in her book “Sabor a hiel” (Taste of Bitterness), published by Planeta.

Quintana defended herself against the charges saying her computer had given her a bad turn, the result of her lack of computer experience, and that some texts she had archived for reference only had mistakenly ended up in the final version of the novel she sent to Planeta.

She also announced that, although 100,000 copies of the book had already been sold, she would release a new edition with the necessary corrections.

The chief editor at Planeta, José Manuel Lara, stated that the publishing house places complete trust in the authors and cannot be responsible for the original texts it receives. “It is impossible to ensure that such plagiarism will not occur again,” he added.

Quintana’s computer explanation does not hold up when one compares her book to the Spanish translation of the novel ‘Family Album,’ by best- selling US writer Danielle Steel.

Steel, for example, wrote of a character who imagines that if she hung a basket from her feet, she could give aerial tours of Los Angeles. In “Sabor a hiel” Quintana uses the identical phrase, changing only the name of the location to Madrid.

This is not the only example. In 24 of the book’s 236 pages there are paragraphs that were apparently copied from Steel, nearly all of them word for word, though with the characters’ names changed.

Given such evidence, the question is not whether Quintana plagiarised, but rather “if she even wrote the book,” commented author Juan José Millás ..

The Quintana case “is conscious plagiarism, a copy that no writer would have dared to perpetrate with such impudence”, Millás maintained in an article published in ‘El País’ newspaper.

This kind of plagiarism “is reserved for the ‘negro,’ who receives little money and no glory for the work he performs for another” writer.

Raúl del Pozo, also a journalist and author, admitted having worked as a “negro,” as ghostwriters are known in Spain, as did Carlos Luis Alvarez, nicknamed “Cándido,” and president of the Association of European Journalists.

Cándido said in his memoirs that in 1956 he wrote the book ‘Los mártires de la Iglesia’ (The Martyrs of The Church), which was published under friar Justo Pérez de Urbel’s name, a priest who was later abbot at the Valle de los Caídos, home to the tomb of former dictator Francisco Franco, 80 km outside Madrid.

The discovery of plagiarism in ‘Sabor a hiel’ triggered memories for several writers about similar situations.

Cándido recounted a joke by writer and philosopher Eugenio d’Ors (1881-1954), that Franco’s minister Eduardo Aunós (1894-1967) would have been extremely well educated if he had read all the books he claimed to have written.

Journalist Francisco Perejil cited the case of Alejandro Sawa (1862-1909), who had demanded in a letter to Rubén Darío (1867-1916) payment for numerous articles he had written for the Nicaraguan poet to sign as if they were his own.

But ghostwriters do not work only for writers and journalists.

In May 1983, King Juan Carlos of Spain gave a speech in Brazil that was identical to an article signed by then-president of the Spanish government, Felipe González, published in the French weekly ‘Le Monde Diplomatique’ just days before.

A journalist covering the king’s Latin American tour discovered the “duplication.” A staff member of Spain’s Foreign Ministry had used the same text for the speech, perhaps thinking that Brazil is a long way from France and that no one would notice the similarities.

In journalistic and literary circles, it is recognised that many best-selling writers use “negros”. So much so, in fact, that the Spanish Royal Academy of Language has for years included an alternative definition in its dictionary: a “negro” is “one who writes literary works that are signed by another”.

The literal translation ofá “ghostwriter” is “escritor fantasma,” in Spanish, and is used throughout Latin America, though it is not recognised by the Royal Academy.

Chileans, however, have another designation, one with a humorous twist: “medio pollo” (half chicken).

Ghostwriter, half chicken, or “negro,” whoever may have written for Ana Rosa Quintana did not do the reading public any favours.