David Irving's Documentary Exhibits

International Campaign for Real History

Among documents collected by David Irving for his libel action against Austrian-born Gitta Sereny is this article which reported that she, like many famous writers (e.g. the author of Roots), was accused of plagiarism -- i.e. the unfair cribbing of another author's published writings.
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November 30, 1982

[image added by this website: Gitta Sereny by Gary]

Professor Challenges Material in Article in Times Magazine

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Sereny by Gary A COLLEGE professor has discovered similarities between quotations and phrasing in a recent article in The New York Times Magazine on a woman who spent many years with Mohandas K. Gandhi and the woman's autobiography published 22 years ago.

The similarities between the article, "A Life With Gandhi," which appeared on Nov. 14, and the autobiography, "The Spirit's Pilgrimage," were brought to the attention of Edward Klein, editor of the magazine, in a letter from Marcene Marcoux, associate professor of anthropology at Framingham State College.

The subject of the 5,000-word article and of the book was Madeleine Slade, an Englishwoman who took the name Mirabehn, or Sister Mira, during her 23 years as a helper and disciple of Gandhi before his assassination in 1948. She died last July at the age of 90.

Dr. Marcoux listed numerous instances of "unacceptable borrowing" in which specific words, phrases and quotations from the autobiography were echoed in the article by Gitta Sereny, a freelance writer based in Britain who has been a contributor to The Sunday Times of London and The Sunday Telegraph. She also had contributed previously to The New York Times Magazine and is the author of three books.

In one example noted by Dr. Marcoux, the article stated:

"But a few weeks later, a battered postcard with unfamiliar and indistinct handwriting dropped through her letter box. This was the note: 'Dear Friend: I must apologize...' She resumed her training with renewed confidence, spending the summer in Switzerland, working with the peasants in the fields in order to harden her physical condition."

On pages 62 and 63 of the autobiography, a passage reads:

"... someone placed a worn-looking postcard in front of me. The handwriting was unfamiliar and rather indistinct... This is what it said: 'Dear Friend, I must apologize...' With new confidence and joy I went on my training... The heat of the summer I spent in Switzerland, working with the peasants in their fields in order to be in as good physical trim as possible."

Miss Sereny told The Times that her article was based on a four-and-a-half-hour interview with Mirabehn in Vienna in May and a brief meeting with her the previous February. She suggested by telephone from London yesterday that similarities might have arisen because Mirabehn "no doubt used the same words each time she was interviewed."

Miss Sereny said that Mirabehn, who she said was "extremely ill" at the time and "had a limited vocabulary," had kept a copy of her autobiography at her side during the interview and, on occasion, "she would say, 'Look, look here, I say...'"

Miss Sereny had listed "The Spirit's Pilgrimage" in a bibliography of sources submitted to the magazine with her article. And in her article, she mentioned the book and quoted a passage in which Mirabehn talked of an Indian revolutionary whom Gandhi had once suggested as a marriage partner for her. However, Miss Sereny did not directly attribute any of Mirabehn's material to the book.

Mr. Klein, the magazine's editor, said the matter was under investigation.