Harvard author faces scrutiny

The Boston Globe reports:

A Harvard undergraduate who signed a book deal for reportedly $500,000 while still a freshman is facing allegations that portions of her newly published first novel closely resemble parts of a coming-of-age novel published by a New Jersey writer in 2001.


Kaavya Viswanathan's ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" contains more than a half-dozen passages in which the language closely echoes ''Sloppy Firsts," published by a division of Random House Inc., including one 14-word sequence that appears in both books. Late last week, Random House sent a letter raising concerns about the similarities to lawyers for Little, Brown and Co., the publishers of ''Opal Mehta," a spokesman for Random House said yesterday.

No word yet from Laurence Tribe on the matter.