Statement in response to charges that Antjie Krog plagiarised Ted Hughes in Country of My Skull (Random House, Johannesburg 1998)

Stephen Johnson; Managing Director Random House

Our author has informed us of a claim of plagiarism levelled against her in a letter that she received during the course of 2005.

The letter writer asserted that Krog had plagiarised Ted Hughes in her work Country of My Skull that was published by Random House in 1998.

This claim has now been repeated in a piece written by Stephen Watson and published in the latest edition of the journal New Contrast, of which Watson is the editor.

Krog responded to the letter writer last year, stating that prior to receiving the correspondence concerned, she had not read, seen or heard of the piece by Hughes to which these allegations refer.

We have examined Watson’s claims regarding Krog’s alleged use of the Hughes piece and reject, out of hand, that his argument holds any validity. We cannot tell whether he is confused or deliberately disingenuous in making these claims against Krog. What is clearly apparent, however, is the man’s inability to grasp the nuances of Krog’s writing about myth in her work Country of My Skull. We are dismayed that this lapse should have provoked an altogether unreasonable, venomous and academically shallow diatribe in response. We support fully and without reservation Krog’s efforts to protect her reputation from, particularly, the personal attack recently published in New Contrast.

LitNet: 19 February 2006

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