I find it facinating that almost 18 years after its publication the 2-volume work of 200 Years together written by the Nobel Prize winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who himself was imprisoned in the Gulags is still forbidden from being translated into an English language edition. It's still politically incorrect to mention the outsized role of Jews in that aspect of Russion history apparently even though Solzhenitsyn's essay itself blamed the Russian people themselves as much as he blamed the Jews. But the idea of banning an English translation of a Nobel Prize winning author's work is still rather mind blowing when you think about it. French, German, and Russian editions are available, but not any English language versions.
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Together-Complete-Volumes-Dvesti/product-reviews/5969707023
“... the idea of banning an English translation of a Nobel Prize winning author’s work is still rather mind blowing when you think about it...” [jimwatx, post 116]
Sorry, but I cannot look on the lack of an English translation as anything especially upsetting - not above & beyond the worldwide mess prevailing.
Anyone who still thinks Nobel Prizes are awarded on anything related to excellence or salutary impact is mistaken...the Award Committees are as subject to politics (both the internal bureaucratic sort, and the international power-politics sort) as any other organizations now in existence.
There is also the matter of finding translators who are both sufficiently talented and sufficiently trustworthy. Translation is not a minor technical matter, nor is the daily practice of it as routine and simple as many Americans merely assume. The UN is in constant sate of muddle in part because real-time translation of verbal discourse is so difficult.
And all of this is true before one factors in the widespread corruption in the chattering classes, from which ranks translators must be drawn. The revolts being staged by “woke” PC workers at Starbucks, restaurants like like Lexington’s Red Hen, and Wayfair’s Boston-area plant are recent and on small scale compared to the “trahison des clercs” that has been going on in the ranks of real “clerks” (not mere intellectuals): low-level technical employees of security organizations whose job it is to translate documents (technical, policy, history, operations etc) from other languages. Severe shortages have occurred, and recruitment is unusually difficult. Even after vetting, background-checking, competence testing, they go bad at high rates. The backlog has been worsening for some years. It’s a problem of some concern in the defense & security establishments.