Sex, Drugs and Plagiarism: Did the New Star of German Literature Steal from a Blogger?

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To fully understand the situation, perhaps it is necessary to try and see the story from Airen's perspective. After years of excess, the dawn of a new life and quitting writing, parts of his own story have landed on the bestseller lists. Except that somebody else wrote the book. It's hardly surprising that he's feeling stunned.

It is therefore somewhat ironic that Airen likes the novel. "'Axolotl' is full of interesting sections," he says. "There was really no need for her to copy me. But she borrowed entire passages of dialogue. I feel like my copyright has been infringed."

In "Axolotl Roadkill," Hegemann sketches out her aesthetic philosophy in different terms. "Berlin is here to mix everything with everything," one of her characters says, in English. "I help myself wherever I find inspiration and ideas: Films, music, books, paintings, poetry about sausages, photos, conversations, dreams … Light and shadow, precisely because my work and my theft become authentic the moment something touches my soul. Who cares where I get things from? All that matters is what I do with them." "So it's not by you, then?" someone asks him. "No. It's by some blogger."

Heroin as Metaphor

Airen is that blogger. His aesthetic philosophy, by contrast, is simple: "If it says in my book that I had to throw up, it means I really threw up," he says with a smile. It's the smile of a man who is glad just to have survived.

For one of them it is all a game, and a text is always the result of an experiment. For the other it began in similar fashion, but then turned serious. One uses heroin as a metaphor for truth -- the other actually used it.

So, in this case, is it theft or an act of homage to plagiarize sentences? Is it "remixing" or is it just stealing?

For Airen and the Sukultur publishing house, the situation is simple. "We want to make it clear that 'Strobo' is one of many elements which make up 'Axolotl Roadkill.' That has to be recognized and valued," says Anja Maleu.

That's exactly what the Ullstein publishing house wants to do. Future editions of "Axolotl Roadkill" will contain a list of sources. The American author Kathy Acker will be mentioned, as will American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and private correspondence -- and Airen, in the form of both his blog and his book.

Just a Clever Marketing Idea?

Airen has already been added to the book's acknowledgements. Hegemann admits it was a mistake not to have mentioned him from the outset. But she insists she corrected the mistake before the scandal broke and the accusations against her began. But she doesn't think she did anything wrong.

Interestingly enough, Airen's name appears in the acknowledgements together with that of the powerful German literary agent Petra Eggers. With so many famous names in her immediate surroundings, it's easy to dismiss Hegemann's book as a clever marketing idea or even an imaginary tale about "the cultural establishment itself," as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper put it.

On the other hand, it's made a great story.

The success of "Axolotl Roadkill" is based on a yearning for an authentic voice with access to a world that is closed to others. For a while, it seemed as if a 17-year-old bohemian from the trendy Berlin neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg could be this voice. The hubbub about whether or not she committed plagiarism is partly also fuelled by disappointment that she probably isn't that writer. Nevertheless, even if Hegemann used passages written by Airen, it doesn't prove that she isn't that voice. She is certainly a contender. Except, like her readers, she also yearns to access that underground world. And she has a good ear for the authentic -- that's how she found Airen.

The World as Raw Material

Hegemann says she mercilessly plundered her own experiences and those of her friends in the search for material. That is something that has to be taken seriously. The ability to rely on your own taste, to interpret things to suit your needs and to transform them in a way that they can become significant is a talent that should not be underestimated -- because it is rarer than the ability to write well.

In the world of pop music, such people are called stars. A star must know what's cool and be able to represent and personify those things. Being ruthless comes with the territory. Stars use the whole world as their raw material. They take what they consider to be rightfully theirs with the confidence of a demi-god.

That can be painful for those people who become someone else's raw material. It's an act of cruelty, but it is not intended to hurt people's feelings.

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• Part 1: Did the New Star of German Literature Steal from a Blogger?
• Part 2: 'There Was No Need for Her to Copy Me'