Did the New Star of German Literature Steal from a Blogger?

Bestselling 17-year-old German writer Helene Hegemann is being accused of plagiarism after it was revealed that her debut novel contains passages lifted from a blog about sex and drugs in Berlin's techno scene. She denies she did anything wrong.

She may be embroiled in what could be the year's first big literary scandal, but Helene Hegemann seems relatively relaxed. It's Tuesday afternoon of last week. That morning, the culture pages of all of Germany's major daily newspapers published stories about Hegemann's novel "Axolotl Roadkill," and now hundreds of e-mails have flooded her inbox. "I can't understand what all the fuss is about," Hegemann says.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,678165,00.html