Laura l'immortelle

2007 novel by Marie-Pier Côté

978-2-89549-258-0

Laura l'immortelle ("Laura the Immortal" in French) is a novel by Marie-Pier Côté, a Québécois Canadian author.^[1] The book was published by Les Éditions des Intouchables on January 17, 2007, when Côté was 12 years old.^[2]^[3]

The book was launched with a lot of publicity because of the author's age.^[4]^[5]^[6] The author initially stated that she secretly wrote the book between mid-October 2005 and mid-June 2006 and corresponded with a friend.^[3]

On March 13, 2007 the French-language newspaper La Presse published an article noting a list of similarities between Laura l'immortelle and the film Highlander;^[5] La Presse editor Nathaëlle Morissette discovered that the novel had similarities to the film,^[7] with one editor saying that the similarities were "a little troubling."^[4]

A Frenchman named Frédéric Jeorge received a copy of the book, and he found that almost all of the book was a copy of "Des cendres et du vent," a Highlander fan fiction written by Jeorge that was available on the Internet around late 2001.^[8] After being confronted, Côté admitted that she plagiarized the fan fiction, and presented it as an original work.^[9]^[10]

Jeorge received $4,500 as compensation from the publisher, and Michel Brûlé, the owner of the publishing company responsible for the publication of the book, said that Côté's parents also had to pay $24,469.32 as compensation to the publisher. Laura l'immortelle had about 5,000 copies printed.^[10]^[11]

References

^ "Laura l''immortelle (Paperback)." Amazon.ca. Accessed October 16, 2008.
^ (in French) "LAURA L'IMMORTELLE."^{[dead link]} Les Éditions des Intouchables. Accessed October 16, 2008.
^ ^a ^b (in French) Larochelle, Claudia. "Romancière à 12 ans." Le Journal de Montréal at Canoe. February 2, 2007.
^ ^a ^b "Artists split on election." The Montreal Gazette. March 18, 2007. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
^ ^a ^b (in English) Charlebois, Gaetan L. (Freelance) "Artists split on election: France, Quebec split on the thong thing." The Gazette (Montreal). Sunday March 18, 2007. Final Edition. Arts & Life, Chaud Show, A22. Available on LexisNexis.
^ (in French) "Une Québécoise de 12 ans, Marie-Pier Côté, fait paraître un roman jeunesse Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine." Nouvelles Télé-Radio/The Canadian Press. via Radioactif.com. Thursday January 18, 2007.
^ (in French) Morissette, Nathaëlle. "Le roman de Marie-Pier Côté largement inspiré d'Highlander. La Presse. March 13, 2007.
^ (in French) Jeorge, Frédéric. "De cendres et de vent." November 2001.
^ (in French) Morissette, Nathaëlle. "Laura l'immortelle : Marie-Pier Côté admet le plagiat." La Presse. March 22, 2007.
^ ^a ^b (in French) "Plagiat aux Intouchables." Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at Radio-Canada.ca. March 22, 2007. Retrieved on November 13, 2010. "Il s'est engagé à verser à Frédéric Jeorge toutes les recettes du livre. Il veut aussi que les parents de Marie-Pier Côté lui remboursent les 24 469,32 $ de frais de production du roman, tiré à 5000 exemplaires."
^ (in French) "Les nouvelles artistiques L'auteur Frédéric Jeorge touchera une compensation pour son livre copié."^{[dead link]} TQS. Accessed October 23, 2008.