Michal Tal auccuses the author of plagiarizing her book The Ghost of Hannah Mendes.
By DAN IZENBERGnaomi regen 88(photo credit: )
The woman who has accused Naomi Ragen of plagiarizing her book sued the author in the Jerusalem District Court on Thursday for $1 million.
The plaintiff, Michal Tal, accused Ragen of violating her intellectual property rights by taking key elements of a novel Tal published in 1995 and using it for her book The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, which came out three years later.
Both novels take place during the period period when Jews were expelled from Spain and address the persecution of Jews and crypto-Jews during the Inquisition.
Tal is represented by Jerusalem attorney Gilad Corinaldi. Last week, Corinaldi received a court injunction prohibiting Ragen from distributing or selling her book at least until the court begins to hear the dispute.
"The plaintiff claims that the respondent violated her intellectual rights," wrote Corinaldi in the suit. "She maintains that the basis for the respondent's book is the plaintiff's novel, from which she copied the expression of the idea, the structural and literary form, the structure and contents of the plots, the names and traits of the characters, the events, the motives, the artifacts and also the cover of the plaintiff's original work."
Ragen is represented by the firm of Mibi and Paz Moser. Paz Moser quoted Ragen as saying that "anyone who reads both books from start to finish will understand that the [plaintiff's] claim is groundless and that my book is an original creation."
Moser said he would file his response to the lawsuits at the beginning of next week. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for March 7.
Tal's book, The Lion and the Cross, was published by the London-based Minerva Press, which has since closed down.
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