Interesting Fact

So I was reading more about Zadie Smith online when I came across an interesting fact that I did not know before and that was that Zadie Smith actually used an idea from a poem to start her novel, On Beauty. It is said that On Beauty is a modern version with a twist of the poem Howard's End by E. M. Forster. Thinking about this I started to actually not appreciate the book as much as I did before. When I first read the book I was shocked at how an author under the age of thirty is able to write a novel with such in depth chracters and ideas from scratch. How does an author wiht not that much expereince create a novel with so many layers and ideas to discuss that a person probablly could write a book just discussing this book, but now I'm not sure I feel that way. Evn though I understand that a poem is compeltley differnt than a book and a book requires more in depth analysis of each chracter and may require more substance and ideas, but still it did not stem from Zadie Smith's mind. Zadie Smith used another person's idea and created a novel based off that and became known as a true artist and writer. Yet does she really deserve the credit? She updated the poem to modern times and added race and geneder as issues in the novel but plot was taken from the poem so i just wanted to see what others felt about this and if they feel that Zadie Smith is still the author she is made out to be or should not be considered as great of a writer becuase the plot of her novel did not stem from her own mind and her own creativity but from someone else.