Russian book publishers are grieving: Stephen King and JK Rowling have left our book market.
Akunin has not yet left: where will he be fed as generously as here?
But anything can happen.
Here and there I read, in fact, the right idea: if our or foreign opponents of the SVO leave the book market, then people who have lost the opportunity to read King and Akunin will not stand in line for books by quilted jackets and militarists.
There is a formal logic here that works by presenting Russia as a despotism that has deprived its readers of a choice.
But here, however, there is no general picture, and I will now finish it with light strokes.
There was such a writer - Maxim Gorky.
About 100 years ago he was one of the most popular writers in the world.
He was definitely in the top five.
Moreover, he was the most popular playwright in the world, overtaking Ibsen and Chekhov in terms of the number of productions.
And only Shakespeare could compete with Gorky.
Collected works of Gorky - expensive multi-volume books!
were published in all major languages of the world.
He was a natural superstar.
But then Gorky returned to the USSR, supported Stalin, and over the next half century his reputation was dealt incredible blows.
Gorky eventually became almost obscene.
His books did not become less brilliant, but he himself was canceled.
You probably do not know what a deafening world popularity Soviet literature enjoyed in the 30s of the last century.
Several numbers.
The novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky "How the Steel Was Tempered" was translated by 1938 into 78 languages, and circulations on all continents went into the millions.
Sholokhov was a world star of the level of Hemingway and Remarque: “The Quiet Don” was translated by 1938 into 55 languages, and “Virgin Soil Upturned” into 53. By that time, the novels “Timur and his team” by Gaidar and “Get whiter” were translated into 43 languages. a lonely sail" by Kataev - they were read by children all over the world along with the books of Kipling and Mark Twain.
After the war, without exaggeration, Polevoy's The Tale of a Real Man became a worldwide hit - dozens of translations and millions of copies sold.
At some point, it became clear to certain forces that Soviet literature was in too much demand, and, despite the market and other nonsense, they began to openly and secretly cancel it.
Slowly, quietly, but very confidently.
And for a not too long period of time cancelled.
No one, you know, worried that "our readers will not read Fleming instead of Gorky, Sholokhov and Polevoy."
No new releases, no problem.
Eduard Limonov was quite a moderately successful European writer by 1991, translated into two dozen languages and awarded by their institutions.
By that time, 22 of his books had been published in France alone.
But he first returned to Russia and opposed Yeltsin, and then went to support the Serbs.
He was photographed with a machine gun, for which at that moment, to confess, he simply showed off, and was canceled on the world book market in a matter of weeks.
Since then, no one there has translated, distributed or reviewed for two decades in a row.
And at the same time, no one in all of Europe was soaring on the topic: “What should the readers of Limonov, King read now?”
Removed and that's it.
When I arrived in France in 2005 and asked about Limonov, they answered me quietly: “It is not customary for us to talk about this person out loud.”
"And his books - are they at least in second-hand bookshops?"
I asked.
“There are no books of his anywhere,” they told me.
And really they were nowhere.
They regulate their market as they see fit.
My books have been translated into 25 languages, even, believe it or not, into Ukrainian, where I was the best-selling foreign writer in 2014.
Then they canceled me, I understand them.
I want to cancel them too.
But they canceled not only there, but in general on all continents, only Cuba and China remained.
My former agents don't even send me reports: I'm contagious to them.
And there is hardly any newspaper in Europe that will write: "You know, this is not good."
It's been the norm for them for a long time.
And only here they raise their hands and say: "Lukyanenko will not replace King."
Well, don't care.
King is neither Gorky nor Sholokhov.
Not the kind of tragedy to mourn.
But we, of course, will be sad and wring our hands: oh, we have an iron curtain again.
Against the backdrop of Western cynics and manipulators, we are so funny.
So funny it's not even funny.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.