Youth Arrested As Harry Potter is Lost in Translation

A French Harry Potter fan has been arrested after allegedly posting a pirate translation of the latest JK Rowling book on the internet.

The 16-year-old was apparently too impatient to wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and last in the series, to be published in French. So he set about translating all 784 pages himself, according to investigators. The first chapters were available for download a few days after the book came out in July and the complete text was online within days. The site has since been shut down.

"He wasn't doing it to make money, he is a fan," said an investigator. "His language is French but he's very good at English."

According to Le Parisien, Rowling alerted her French publishers, Gallimard, to the unofficial version. Police were "particularly surprised" by its quality, which they said was "semi professional".

The high school student from Aix-en-Provence, who has not been named, was arrested on Monday. He was released yesterday while "preliminary inquiries" were made. Police were hoping to question several others. Anyone convicted could face a heavy fine.

The book will be published in French under the title Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort in October.

An internet discussion last month suggested that several fans working together had produced the translation. "The translation is semi professional, proof of relentless work by 'fans'," said a blogger. "These passionate pirates are risking a lot. We have learned that the editor has launched a big 'witchhunt' to throw in the cauldron those pirating JK Rowling's book."

Another blogger said: "Obviously given the success of the series people's stupidity is provoked - why, we could ask, isn't the publisher capable of publishing the book internationally. It shows a lack of respect for all the French/Spanish/German speaking readers."

The seventh book is being officially translated by Jean-François Ménard, 59, who worked on the previous novels and is an author in his own right. His wife, Diane, said: "He cannot talk to you right now as he's translating night and day. I hadn't heard about this pirate translation but with the previous books there's often been someone doing something like this and it's never threatened the real thing."

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