Author denies plagiarism in story modelled on Mavis Gallant tale

Sadia Shepard has been accused of making excessive use of the late author’s work in Foreign-Returned, but insists her reworking honours Gallant’s legacy

The author Sadia Shepard has defended herself in against a claim from author and professor Francine Prose that her short story Foreign-Returned draws too heavily from Mavis Gallant’s The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street.

Gallant’s story, published in 1963 in the New Yorker, tells of a couple in Canada, Peter and Sheilah, reminiscing about the time they spent living in Geneva. There, Peter worked as a file clerk with a shy girl called Agnes, who knows a glamorous family, the Burleighs. Peter and Sheilah invite Agnes for an awkward dinner to find out more about the relationship; later, they all attend a party at the Burleighs’, where Agnes gets drunk and Peter takes her home. Shepard, the author of an acclaimed memoir, The Girl from Foreign, published her first short story with the New Yorker in January: Foreign-Returned tells of a Pakistani couple living in Connecticut, Hassan and Sara. Hassan works with Hina, and he and his partner are shocked to discover that Hina also knows the glamorous Ahmeds. They invite her to a dinner that is as awkward as that in Gallant’s story. At a later party, Hassan is asked to take Hina home.

Continue reading...