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Bookbuyer
The publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's work in the West is always surrounded by dramas which bring up all kinds of vivid issues, that some of us might prefer to forget. His most recent book August 1914, due to be published here in September by The Bodley Head, is no exception. In fact outside Britain it already has a history that makes Bookbuyer, ardent admirer of publishers though he is, almost understand Solzhenitsyn's contempt of Western publishers. Since most European publishers were originally agreed that the Russian manuscript would take several months to translate, they must have been surprised last year, only days after the Frankfurt Book Fair, to find that several thousand copies were available in German. The translation was very good as well — done by the best translator in Germany, Alexander Kaempfe, from a samizdat copy. This edition had been put out (or should one say pirated?) in only four months by the huge Langen Milner group: for once a publishing secret had been kept, and until the last minute even the printer thought he was producing translated Russian ballads. 60,000 copies were sold before Luchterhand got an injunction order, on the grounds that they were the official publishers accredited by Dr. Heeb, Solzhenitsyn's authorised agent. The hearing is still in process, and while Langen Milller can't sell any more copies of August 1914, presumably their excellent translation is still being read, and possibly — who knows? — by Luchterhand's current translator.
This undignified scrabble for Solzhenitsyn's work — not the first — no doubt partly explains Solzhenitsyn's resentment of Western publishers, though his traditionally Russian dislike of biographies of the living, and his claim to be his own biographer are also important. But not all publishers are the monsters some Soviets imagine: Hodder and Stoughton for example have been particularly scrupulous over David Burg and George Feifer's forthcoming biography of Solzhenitsyn. Not only is it exceptionally wellresearched, but the sources are also carefully protected. Hodder's say that they have taken expert advice and cannot envisage any danger to the writer or to his circle in publishing the book. Bookbuyer cannot remember such care being taken over the Italian biography Chi 6 Solzhenitsy in the paperback "Chi é" series. Nor can Bookbuyer un derstand the motive of David Floyd's atacks in the ' Telegraph, pointing out dangers that Hodder's have tried far harder than Solzhenitsyn himself to prevent. It was the Sunday Telegraph after all that printed a very provocative letter from Solzhenitsyn to the Church. But for all Hodder's gentlemanly behaviour, there is danger enough, as a new wave of persecuting the intelligentsia gathers force.
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