Wednesday, September 22, 2021

They say plagiarism is a form of flattery. 


It is also a blatant form of theft.

The photo at the top right is from a scanning of page 7 of the illustrations in our The Ghana Cookbook. With co-author Barbara Baëta, the book came out at the end of 2015 and has since gone through several printings. 

Recently,  I was appalled to see on Amazon.com several books all purporting to be "new"  or "essential" or "ultimate" "Ghana Cookbooks" by unknown-to-me authors.
I am generally thrilled when new West African books appear  on the scene, usually by respected African culinary experts like Pierre Thiam or Zoe Adjonyoh.  

However, it irritates me when folks with no credentials (or  else, bots?) crank out dozens of copycat books on popular topics.  It took me decades of learning to gain my knowledge.

I first noticed Amazon.com listing several dubious books claiming to have expertise on Ghana's cooking--all seem to be by individuals who crank out dozens of books on a variety of unrelated subjects.  I noticed the first one because it blatantly appropriated one of my personally taken photos from The Ghana Cookbook. "Wilfred Dawson" also plagiarized freely from my work. 






I sure don't feel flattered.