Irony 451

[David Casseres]

I may have posted this anecdote before; forgive me if I am a Witzelsuchter.

Years ago I heard Ray Bradbury tell this story about Fahrenheit 451:
After its success in English, some aparatchik in the USSR noticed it
and said, presumably, "Wow, a biting indictment of the decadence of
the West!" and so the People's Book Publishing Company translated it
into Russian and made it a best-seller.

Bradbury got wind of this and wrote to the PBPC requesting payment of
royalties; they informed him that the USSR was not a signatory to the
International Copyright Convention, so they didn't owe him anything.
But because they considered him a good guy, they'd send him a case of
copies of the Russian edition, for free.

Bradbury thought the irony was pretty thick at that point, but he
hadn't seen nothin' yet.

A few weeks later, he got a letter from U.S. Customs in New York,
informing him that they were holding a shipment of Communist
propaganda from the Soviet Union, and requesting his permission to
destroy it.

Bradbury asked for details, and yes, it was several dozen copies of
Fahrenheit 451, in Russian.

He explained that he, an American, had written it, and it was an
attack on totalitarianism, not Communist propaganda.

Customs didn't care.

Bradbury asked what would happen if he denied permission to destroy
the books.  Customs replied that in that case, they would destroy the
books.

And in the end, they did destroy the books, by burning them.

On 10/3/06, Henry <hmusikar at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Book Banning in Texas:
> http://www.hcnonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17270600
>
> HM
>