There are some obvious literary precedents that need to be mentioned with regard to The White Hotel, among which Anatoli Kuznetsov's Babi Yar is the most problematic. Thomas's reliance upon it in the fifth section of his book has occasioned accusations of plagiarism, and although this is too harsh a description of his use of the testimony Kuznetsov collected, there are those who feel that it seriously detracts from the originality of The White Hotel. A more charitable, and probably accurate, view is that Thomas has indulged in an acceptable degree of artistic license in making use of the historical raw material contained in Babi Yar and has transformed its straightforward factual account into the stuff of creative and highly imaginative fiction.

Thomas's imitation of Freud's case studies has occasioned less controversy and been much more warmly greeted.

He makes it clear that he admires Freud...