Martel's publishers blase about borrowed ideas

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">LONDON: Amid controversial claims that Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel''s spiritual ''Indian'' idea had a Brazilian father, his publishers, the prize officials and pundits have all but said that the best idea in literature is to freely acknowledge you have none of your own.<br />"This is not really our concern, we were always aware that Martel got his inspiration from a Brazilian author," Booker Prize Spokeswoman Charlotte Hooper told <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">TNN</span>.<br />"It''s not our concern either, this is no story, Yann has always acknowledged that he got the spark of inspiration from a review he read of the Brazilian book," added Pru Rowlandson of Canongate, Martel''s British publishers.<br />Meanwhile, some of London''s best literary agents have advertised their view that "there are only seven basic stories to tell in fiction" – <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Orpheus</span>; <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Achilles</span>; <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Cinderella</span>; <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Tristan and Isolde</span>; <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Circe</span>; <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Romeo and Juliet</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Faust</span>.All stories, said the pundits, are those re-told over the ages, including those by that old plagiarist, William Shakespeare.<br />And it seems Martel. With his prize-winning <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Life of Pi</span> reportedly selling fewer copies in many Indian cities, such as Pune, than Arundhati Roy''s five-year-old Booker triumph, Martel is said to be under pressure to cash in on his literary feat while it is fresh.<br />According to one cynical literary source, the ugly publicity is not good but it may help keep Martel''s name in the lights till he undertakes some promotional tours, including a tentative passage to India. <br />Martel''s publishers said the India tour was under discussion but up in the air at present.<br />So what of Martel''s great ''Indian'' idea, revolving around a teenaged Hindu Muslim Christian boy from Pondicherry? He is under fire for conceptual plagiarism of the plot, which has the boy adrift in the ocean with a lion named Richard Parker. <br />To his credit, Martel has always acknowledged that he borrowed the original "premise" of the story from a Brazilian novella, titled <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Max and the Cats</span> and published more than 20 years ago. <br />Martel claimed not to have read the Brazilian book, but only its <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">New York Times</span> review. Now, it reportedly turns out, that review never existed.<br />The plot thickened further on Friday as the angry Brazilian author all but branded Martel a literary pickpocket and Martel''s exciting claim to have heard the story idea from an old Indian man was emphatically underlined as a fiction.<br />His publishers insist the controversy is "just a tiny aspect of a book". But few deny it makes a good story, even if plagiarised down the ages. </div> </div>