Russian version of Clinton's memoirs 1/4 longer

Alpina, a publishing house, has begun translating Bill Clinton's political bestseller, "My Life," which has sold millions and shook up the American and European book markets in July.

The Russian translation of thousand-page book will be about a quarter longer because of certain aspects of the Russian language and not because of new biographical material.

"The Russian [translation] is 20% longer than the English original," Alexander Limansky said while presenting the project at RIA Novosti. "But the price of the book - approximately 400 rubles ($1 = 29 rubles) will be lower. It was $35 in the United States."

The book will probably be on the shelves in Russia in January 2005, the publishers noted and added that the number of Russian readers is expected to be much smaller than the number of American readers.

"We hope for 20,000-30,000 copies," he said. "If we sell them, it will be very good."

In the first week of sales in the U.S., Americans bought more than one million copies of the former president's memoirs.