St. Martin's Press has acknowledged that Melany Neilson's novel The Persia Café contains a number of passages that appear to be copied from sections of Barbara Kingsolver's bestselling novel The Bean Trees.
Frances Goldin, Kingsolver's agent, said Kingsolver "was outraged when she heard about this.... We expect a public apology from the author and the publisher." HarperCollins, the publisher of The Bean Trees, has issued a list of eight passages taken from The Bean Trees that appear to resemble passages in The Persia Café. The Bean Trees was published in 1988 and sold over a million copies.
Thomas Dunne, publisher of Thomas Dunne Books which published The Persia Café in February, said that Neilson has acknowledged that she read Kingsolver's novel and that there are similarities between the two books. Dunne said the copying was the result of "a mistake" and that Neilson has rewritten the passages; future editions of the book will be corrected. He said the copying was "unintentional and brief. She was absolutely chagrined when this was brought to her attention."
He also emphasized that this was "not plagiarism. The books have different plots, settings and characters. Kingsolver's book just stuck in her head." Dunne said that Neilson has also sent "a personal and heartfelt apology" to Kingsolver. Current editions of The Persia Café will not be withdrawn, said Dunne, because the duplicated passages are small. The book has about 20,000 copies in print.
According to HarperCollins, the similarities between the two works were brought to the publisher's attention by a teacher in Ohio, who was using The Bean Trees in her 10th grade English classes.
