Ricardo Piglia: plagiarism as literature

This article examines the role of plagiarism in the work of Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia. It presents five cases where evidence shows that Piglia has incorporated entire passages of other authors into his own fictions, including Leonid Andreyev, Emil Cioran, Jack Kerouac, Carlos Droguett, and an anonymous journalist from the Uruguayan newspaper Acci & oacute;n. . The objective is to analyze possible reasons behind this practice and problematize it. It is argued that Piglia follows a series of literary devices present in the work of Jorge Luis Borges and how Piglia's own critical work addresses the topic of plagiarism in literature. In this sense, it is explained that the Argentine literary tradition that Piglia identifies-Sarmiento, Arlt, Fernandez, Borges, among others- is based on quotation, intertextuality, and plagiarism. Thus, it is suggested that the author himself could be using this resource in his fiction works.