Booker man hits back at accuser

Swift rejects criticism that work copies another

The Booker Prize winner Graham Swift hit back yesterday at suggestions that his award-winning book was not original.

The nation's literati paused for a sharp intake of breath after accusations that Mr Swift's Last Orders bore close structural similarities to William Faulkner's American classic As I Lay Dying.

But Mr Swift said he was amazed at claims that his work was not original. He said that he would be answering the allegations against him point-by- point in a detailed letter to his accuser, Professor John Frow, of Queensland University.

Writing in The Australian Review of Books, Professor Frow argued that in Last Orders Mr Swift had extensively borrowed style and form from the earlier work without giving a "knowing nod" of acknowledgement towards Faulkner.

In his defence, Mr Swift told The Independent: "These claims are absolutely absurd.

"The link between the two books is something that has already been mentioned ... One reviewer prominently discusses this very point and praises the way I have drawn on Faulkner. The two books are about different worlds and different people, written in a different form of the English language.

"But the link between them is not the main point of my novel. I am drawing on archetypal ideas which have been constantly re-worked through the ages."

Professor Frow alleges that Faulkner's transportation of the dead Addie Bundren to her funeral in Jefferson, Mississippi, is used in a "direct and unacknowledged imitation" by Mr Swift, whose central character, Jack Dodds, has his ashes carried from London to Margate to be scattered by his friends.

But Mr Swift maintains his story draws on 1,000 years of literary tradition. "The book looks at the age-old idea of how living people deal with the death of their relatives.

"This is a very basic story and it is not exclusive to any writer. Each generation retells the tale in their own way. It is even more common than stories about falling in love."

As I Lay Dying, published in 1930, is renowned for the narrative's alternating voices, recounting the journey from different viewpoints. The same technique was famously used by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales and has been popular with authors for generations.

Mr Swift said: "In my first novel I alternated between different narrative story-tellers and I didn't get accused to plagiarism then."

Other supposed similarities include: chapters headed with a person's name; a chapter made up of numbered points and a chapter made up of a single sentence.

Mr Swift acknowledges drawing on an earlier literary work for his short chapter, "Vince", which consists of the sentence "Old buggers.": the Bible can safely claim to have the first short chapter in literary history. It reads: "Jesus wept".

The poet and critic Blake Morrison, who has researched the murky vaults of literary plagiary, said: "It has always been a legitimate practice to draw on earlier works and in some eras, such as the 18th century, authors were expected to allude to previous authors.

"I think the real difference is between allusion and theft. If an author lifts paragraphs word for word then it is fair to say that this constitutes plagiarism.

"We should always expect novels to echo earlier books because there are only so many plots that writers can draw upon.

"In this instance the case seems rather thin. Although the two works have similarities in form they are completely different in content."

Mr Swift remains an admirer of Faulkner's novel. "It is a great book. I first read it 25 years ago, although I didn't read it when writing Last Orders. I suppose great books always stay with you. I just hope that mine stay with people as well."

J'accuse ...

Accusations have been levelled at many great, and not so great, writers, including:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Extensively borrowed work from earlier Romantics and German authors for his heady poetry.

TS Eliot: Recent charges of pilfering in his `many voices' poem, The Waste Land.

The Duchess of York: Allegedly lifted the idea of Budgie the Helicopter.

Hugh MacDiarmid: Used a short story by a Welsh writer and a review from the Times Literary Supplement in one of his poems.

DM Thomas: Borrowed extensively from a Russian author for his 1981 Booker prize-winning novel the White Hotel.