The Red Queen's Race

In the TLS, Margaret Drabble contemplates the ironies of "appropriation" from a very personal standpoint:

Drawing on a Korean narrative for The Red Queen was a foolhardly enterprise, and I was well aware of the dangers, dangers which were an integral part of my theme. Being aware, I proceeded, as I thought, in a correct manner, contacting the most recent and most scholarly New York-based translator, and, through her, the American publishers, and declaring my interest. My translator and I agreed detailed acknowledgement of sources and payment for use of copyright material as appropriate, and I proposed the inclusion of a foreword and afterword by her which could place my fictional efforts in a critical context. I envisaged, with what now seems like a childish naivety, the possibility of shared platforms and public discussions....
...For a year or two, I thought I had been welcomed over the boundary into a neutral zone, but I was to discover that I had entered the battlefield of accusations of Orientalism and cultural appropriation, of ignorance, cynicism and plagiarism.
The novel I actually wrote received no critical attention, either hostile or appreciative. I was accused of appropriation, and that was that. The multicultural censor looked no further. No questions were asked about my text, my intentions, my meaning. I did have a meaning, or I once thought that I did. I was so profoundly shocked that I hardly knew what I had done.
Appropriation, like racism, is an ugly word and an easy allegation, not easily addressed in the courts. The nature and ethics of cultural transmission are endlessly fascinating. When is a borrowing a theft, and when is it a benign sign of cross-cultural fertilization? Is there some common source from which all stories rise?