You Can Read Yuval Noah Harari’s Book in Russian, Except for the Parts About Russia

Andrew Solomon was infuriated to learn that the Chinese translation of his 2001 book about depression, “The Noonday Demon,” left out his references to being gay, despite a provision in his contract stating that he had approval over any changes from the original. He only learned of the changes after PEN America, a free-speech organization, checked the translations against the originals of several books as part of a report on Chinese censorship.

“The dishonesty of the publisher was as troubling as the censorship,” Mr. Solomon said. He’s since rescinded translation rights from that company and sold them to another publisher in China that will release an unexpurgated edition.

Although censorship has been declared illegal in Russia, the situation with Mr. Harari’s book reminded many of Soviet-era methods. For instance, Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was published for the first time in 1968 with at least 20 cuts, according to Russian researchers. More recently, “Rocketman,” a movie released earlier this year based on the life of Elton John, had gay scenes cut from the Russian version, according to film critics.

Mr. Harari said that in general, he is in favor of making changes in order to reach a global audience, as long as those changes don’t undermine the substance of his arguments. “We are living in a more complicated reality, and it’s important to reach people in nondemocratic societies,” he said. “And for that you have to make compromises.”

Yet some reform advocates see such compromises as a setback. Natalia Arno, the president and founder of the nonprofit Free Russia Foundation, said she felt it was hypocritical of Mr. Harari to write about “post-truth” and information manipulation, then omit his reference to disinformation coming from the Kremlin.

She added that he was wrong to think that the only way to reach Russian readers was to alter the book when bootleg translations of banned books and articles are common. “If this book was prohibited in Russia,” she said, “many more Russians would read it.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/books/yuval-harari-21-lessons-russian.html?emc=rss&partner=rss