Russian publisher Eksmo alters Joe Hill’s ‘King Sorrow,’ removing a reference to Putin and replacing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with ‘war in Europe’

Several passages in the Russian translation of American author Joe Hill’s novel “King Sorrow” were rewritten to avoid censorship problems, changing the author’s meaning. Nikolai Karayev, who runs the speculative fiction Telegram channel Zvezdnye Mayaki Kapitana Norta, drew attention to the changes by sharing several passages from the original alongside their Russian translations.Hill, Stephen King’s son, writes fantasy and horror. “King Sorrow” is about students who summon a dragon from another world. The Russian edition, translated by Dmitry Starkov, was published in August 2026 by Fanzon, part of the Eksmo publishing group.Here are a few examples of changes in the Russian translation:In one passage in the original, a character says he has “reliable information that the Russians are farming them. They grow trolls like potatoes in the permafrost of Siberia.” Eksmo’s version reads: “I have reliable information that the Ukrainians are breeding trolls. Raising trolls like little pigs.”In another passage, the characters watch footage of the war in Ukraine as the novel describes a strike on a maternity ward in Mariupol. In the translation, Mariupol became Donetsk: “On March 9, something like that hit one of Donetsk’s maternity hospitals. A deafening explosion, a column of flame… One of the expectant mothers was killed in the explosion, and her baby was stillborn.”A reference to “Russian oligarchs who vacationed in Italy with Vladimir Putin” became simply “Russian oligarchs who vacationed in Italy.”Instead of “Russia invaded Ukraine,” the translation says “that night war broke out in Europe.”After media coverage of the changes, Eksmo CEO Yevgeny Kapyev promised to “look into the situation thoroughly” and criticized Hill, writing:So I’m wondering, this thing in Western popular culture that started with James Bond, where the bad guys are Russians or Asians, is it ever going to end? Russia could be portrayed as a wonderful country everywhere… at least in the future… Self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing, after all…And I’m asking authors not to put “Easter eggs” about the current fraught political and military situation into their books… At this rate, they’ll be putting them in recipes soon. There are tons of other ways to get your point across…In the spring, Kapyev was detained along with other senior Eksmo executives in the “publishers’ case.” The case concerned allegations by law enforcement authorities that Popcorn Books, another Eksmo-owned publisher, had engaged in the “distribution of LGBT literature.”At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.Sofya Vorobyova and Anton Khitrov / Telegram