I Write In Words. And My Words

Everybody Comes From Somewhere.

Of Course My Books Are Translated Into Many Languages. I Have Here, In My Home, Translations On My Shelf Of My Books Into Forty-five Different Languages. Almost None Of Them I Can Read. I Can Read Only The English Editions. But, I Know That A Translation Of A Work Of Literature Is Like Playing A Violin Concerto On The Piano. You Can Do This. You Can Do This Very Successfully On One Strict Condition: Never Try To Force The Piano To Produce The Sounds Of The Violin. This Will Be Grotesque. So, Different Musical Instruments Provide For Different Music.

We Got A Wonderful Present From Stalin And Hitler That They Never Meant To Give Us. We Were Immune For 60 Years Or So To Aggression, Racism And Militarism. They Made Us Partly Immune To These Things. Now It Appears This Stalin-hitler Present Has Reached Its Expiration Date. We Were Spoiled By This. So Maybe We Are Just Emerging Out Of A Relatively Golden Age.

I Was Born And Bred In A Tiny, Low-ceilinged Ground-floor Apartment.

The Gift Of Literature Is That, In Some Lucky Cases, Reading A Novel Or A Story Makes The Reader More Curious, More Open-minded.