Episode Information

Recently an acclaimed 17-year-old German author was discovered to have lifted passages from other sources. She was unapologetic. There is no such thing as originality anyway, she said, just authenticity.

She's still in the hunt for literary prizes as some of the judges publicly acknowledge she might have a point. That IS the point of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, a new book by David Shields. Shields made his book up from the work of other writers and objected when the publishers wanted an appendix citing the works. Shields says he's all about the banditry. He'll be with us today, as we consider the question of whether a new (or perhaps very old) definition of authorship is emerging.

Our friend Brian Slattery says is if something strikes you as original, that just means you haven't seen the thing it was based on. Wait, I said that ... who's Brian Slattery?

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