A messy situation

The Guardian recently posted an interesting article about an uptick in demand in Russia for translated versions of escapist fiction. While some big-name authors like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King have announced that Russian editions of their books will not be made available for the duration of the war in Ukraine, the situation is not as simple for less popular writers: for one thing, Russian publishers are offering considerably more money to foreign authors than they have in the past, and for another, refusing to allow foreign works in Russia might actually be helpful to Putin's long-term goal of cracking down on the media's freedom of expression.