I am periodically asked the same questions:
— Why are your books in four languages?
— Why not write in Russian, leaving the rest to translators?
The answer is obvious.
Language is a distinct form of attention, a natural environment for meaning, not merely a linguistic shell.
Translation alone is not enough to place meanings within the context specific to each language, which is inherent in its cultural code. It is necessary to discover the same truth through four different means of expressing it.
Russian conveys what English fails to capture — it demands meticulous precision in context and emotional tone.
English demands what Russian does not imply — direct, straightforward clarity: an argument is understood without subtext.
Spanish syntax carries a weight of formality that French cannot bear.
French does not tolerate what it considers to be imprecision.
Every language lays down its own rules regarding what can be said at all and exactly how it should be said.
II write each book anew, in the register of attention inherent in the cultural code of the language of publication.
What is essential in the Russian version becomes impossible in the English one. What is unthinkable in the Russian version becomes essential in the English one. This is not the same book in a ‘different guise’. It is a fresh encounter with the same meanings.
Any translation offers the reader only the translator’s version. It may be successful, and even brilliant. But it is always the translator’s version, not the author’s.
It is impossible and incorrect to express the themes of philosophy, karma, destiny, the nature of suffering, and the profound connections between consequences and the causes that gave rise to them in an incomplete or inaccurate manner.
They demand not merely the full range of language, but absolute, flawlessly formulated thought.
Four languages. Four different ways of expressing the truth. Each edition is an original.
Please review the Register of Published Works, which lists all publications in Russian, English, Spanish and French.