As sensational a bestseller as Dalva’s book was, its success was quickly sullied by lawsuits. After its 10th straight week on the New York Times bestseller list, a representative of Kyoto Processed Ricepaper Concerns Press filed a suit claiming that A Lone Red Tree had been plagiarized from Jina Himenashi’s novel 偽翻訳 (roughly “red tree standing among dead chrysanthemum blossoms”), which had been published a full six weeks earlier.

Dalva protested that he couldn’t read Japanese, and his lawyer added that while 偽翻訳 had been a Japanese bestseller there were no records of copies being sold or shipped overseas. Himenashi’s legal team presented a compelling argument, displaying translated excerpts of 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree side-by-side. With suitable differences to account for the differences in language structure, the descriptions and events were largely identical.

Particularly damning was the central piece of Dalva’s prose, which told of “a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts.” The comparable phrase of Himenasi’s novel, “いない本物の英語日本語への翻訳,” meant essentially the same thing without definite articles and dead cherry trees where Dalva had conifers. The central thrust of each plot, with a protagonist haunted by the image of that tree until they seek it out and are driven mad in the attempt, was also the same, save that Dalva’s title was set in his native Portland and Himenashi’s tale began in Sapporo.

A guilty verdict and a massive recall of Dalva’s book—to say nothing of a black eye for the press and reviewers behind it—seemed inevitable. But then a representative of Spanish author Cristobal Carminha came forward, claiming that the book Un solitario árbol rojo, which had been a modest seller in Galacia, was a dead match for both 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree and predated either by almost a year. The trial broke up in disarray not long after as the judge demanded a more thorough investigation.

Agents for the publishers in question soon found that no less than 150 books had been written in the previous two years featuring the haunting, maddening image of a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts. Most had been rejected by publishers, but over 40 had made it into print in everything from vanity editions to professional bound copies.

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