JD Salinger wins injunction

Lawyers for the reclusive American author JD Salinger have successfully stopped publication in the United States of a supposed 'sequel' to his classic 1951 novel Catcher in the Rye written by a Swedish-born author Fredrik Colting under the pen name JD California.

New York District Judge Deborah Batts issued an injunction barring the publication in America of 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye.

Colting, who in May told the Guardian that he hoped Salinger would be "pleased" with his book, said this week he was "pretty blown away by the judge's decision" and that he intended to appeal. "Call me an ignorant Swede," he said in an email to the New York Times, "but the last thing I thought possible in the US was that you banned books."

Colting's novel features a character called Mr C who muses on his escape from a retirement home in his seventies, in the manner of Salinger's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who wandered the streets of New York as a 16-year-old after being expelled from his private school.

Judge Batts said: "There is a substantial similarity between Catcher and 60 Years, such that it was an unauthorised infringement of the plaintiff's copyright.

"Mr C has similar or identical thoughts, memories and personality traits to Caulfield, often using precisely the same or only slightly modified language from that used by Caulfield in Catcher, and has the same friends and family as Caulfield."

In a 37-page written ruling, the judge also pointed out that both Caulfield and Mr C like to use the words 'goddam', 'phony', 'crumby', 'lousy', 'hell', 'bastard', and the phrase 'kills me'.

Approximately 35m copies of Catcher in the Rye have been sold since 1951 and it is still taught in almost all American schools. Lawyers for Salinger, now 90 and still living in New Hampshire, called Colting's effort "a rip-off, pure and simple".

However, the Swede could still have the last laugh: his book is already translated into English and selling in Britain where it has not yet become the subject of litigation. As a result of the US case, it is reported to be selling on the internet for up to $200.