Most Plagiarism Scandals Are Overblown, But Not This One

“What smells off” in the case of 17-year-old German novelist Helene Hegemann “is precisely Hegemann’s claim to be using her borrowings to advance a cutting-edge concept of artistry. … This would be more plausible if Hegemann had acknowledged from the beginning that she’d included work from other writers in ‘Axolotl Roadkill,’ but by all indications, she did not.”