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A US judge has banned the publication of 60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye, the title promoted as a sequel to J D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
US District judge Deborah Batts ruled that the novel written and published by Swedish author Fredrik Colting, who writes under the name J D California, was too similar to Salinger's 1951 classic, reports the BBC.
Judge Batts said that Colting's protagonist "Mr C" was an infringement on Salinger's character Holden Caulfield, and that Colting's claim that his novel is a literary commentary not a sequel was "problematic and lacking in credibility", adding that Colting had "taken well more from Catcher, in both substance and style, than is necessary for the alleged transformative purpose of criticising Salinger and his attitudes and behaviour".
Batts issued a preliminary injunction, indefinitely banning the publication, advertising or distribution of the book in the US. The book has already been published in the UK. In June, she issued a 10-day restraining order before ruling on whether to grant Salinger's legal request to ban publication of 60 Years Later in the US.
Salinger's lawyers had described Colting's book as "a rip-off pure and simple". Colting has not commented about the judgment. Colting's attorney Edward Rosenthal at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein told the WSJ they would appeal.