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Reviewer and blogger Jolisa Gracewood says she got no pleasure from uncovering several instances of plagiarism in Witi Ihimaera's latest novel.
Ihimaera is buying the remaining stock of his book The Trowenna Sea after Gracewood's discovery.
Ihimaera has acknowledged in a written apology that some passages in the book were not credited but Gracewood is not convinced that all the offending passages have been found.
She says other passages "look a little out of place" but she hasn't been able to place them elsewhere. And Gracewood is not sure that putting out a new version acknowledging other authors' work is the best approach .
"It's possible the entire manuscript is so compromised the better thing here to do would be to sit down and write it again," Gracewood told ONE News.
Ihimaera is a professor at Auckland University and Gracewood says he has to abide by university rules in terms of what he produces and what he requires students to produce. But she says there is a slightly different requirement for works of fiction and it is a delicate balance.
Gracewood says with Google and the internet it is easier to find plagiarism and there is a general feeling that it's "simply not acceptable to borrow chunks of other people's work, unamended, and slip them into your own writing".
However Gracewood says it is fine to cite historical text properly, as Ihimaera does in this novel. The newly announced arts laureates is best known for his 1987 novel Whale Rider and Gracewood says she was "really looking forward to this book".
"It's really sad...I have long admired this writer.
"It's not something you want to find, it's not something I've enjoyed finding."