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The Danish author Dorthe Nors has had her manuscript for an upcoming novel stolen by a book thief on the internet.
The author himself writes this in a post on Facebook.
Several times a person has tried to pretend to be both Dorthe Nors herself and the author’s agent.
“It turns out that there is a new book thief at play in Scandinavia. For a little over a week, the thief tried to get hold of the manuscript before he succeeded”, writes Dorthe Nors in the post.
With fake emails, the person has tried to get the manuscript for the author’s upcoming novel ‘Spænd’, which is scheduled to be published in January, sent to them.
First, Dorthe Nors herself received an email from the book thief. She became suspicious and instead reported the phishing attempt to the police.
However, a new email later landed with one of the author’s business partners, who did not detect the scam number.
Instead, the book thief managed to get the manuscript for the unpublished book sent to him.
“Obviously I panicked afterwards. I have to live off the novel. Writing literature is my job, not my hobby. What if this costs me my income for the next few years?’, writes Dorthe Nors.
According to the author, a number of people in the book industry have assured her that it has never before had financial consequences for an author when a manuscript has been stolen.
Dorthe Nors’ works have been nominated for a number of Danish and international awards.
In 2022, she received the Blixen prize for the book ‘A line in the world’.
Not the first time
Dorthe Nors is aware that it is not the first time that the book thief has been sent a manuscript.
According to her, “the book thief has been at play in Sweden lately”.
In the past, the Italian book thief Filippo Bernardini has also wrested unpublished literary works from authors.
In January 2022, Bernardini was arrested after stealing hundreds of manuscripts from a number of authors including Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and Sally Rooney.
At that time, the Italian managed to obtain the manuscripts by presenting himself as a publishing agent and publisher on e-mails.
He was charged with fraud and identity theft.
Filippo Bernardini was punished with a fine which, according to The Guardian, amounted to 88,000 dollars, corresponding to almost 600,000 kroner.
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Source: politiken.dk
