A Most Controversial Book

international | arts and media | news report Tuesday January 20, 2009 22:22 by themuralists - The Bogside Artists k_334 at hotmail dot com (028) 71373842

Travels with Li Po

Just before Christmas The Bogside Artists published a small book for children called Travels with Li Po. The book written by one of the trio, William Kelly has caused much controversy because its resemblance to Harry Potter is, for many who have read it, conspicuously obvious. A lawyer who was shown the list of parallels between the Harry Potter series and this book was "flabbergasted".

cover of book

The story is about a young orphaned boy who is in search of The Holy Grail of Enlightenment known to the old achemists as The Philosopher's Stone. Once attained the boy will be granted magical powers. The central idea is that the hero Owen Muldoon is already such a sorcerer but doesn't yet know it. He is being educated into this realisation by a spirit bird, a magical Puffin called Li Po, who is a reincarnated Enlightened One and worthy guide and mentor for our young hero. This may all sound familiar to you but this book was written in 1990 a full six years before the first Harry Potter novel. It has now, for the first time been released to the public exactly as it was then. What took them so long? It is all in the preface of the book in which it is made abundantly clear that the political climate in Anglo-Irish relationships did not help any UK publisher to take a story like this on board.

The extraordinary thing is that little or no interest has been shown in the book since the Derry News was threatened by Rowling's lawyers with financial ruin unless they apologized for a front page article they published on the story. The article drew a direct connection between Travels with Li Po and Harry Potter in words and visuals. The artists have replied to this legal threat at length and put the PDF of their response on their website http://www.bogsideartists.com. Tom Kelly, spokesman for the group had this to say: "It is extraordinary how powerful the Rowling camp is since virtually every newspaper we have approached has shied away from reviewing the book. What has happened to freedom of speech. We are just asking somebody to read the book and give their opinion. Do they think it is a scam. My brother William's integrity as a man and as an artist cannot be questioned. He wrote the book in 1990. He explains what it is about and where the story came from. And yet... editors are wary of it like it was going to bite them. The book is available and we would urge anybody who is interested in the truth or who may be healthily sceptical with regards to the money-spinning Harry Potter enterprise to read it. "