Consider the sorcerer

A pirate version of the latest Harry Potter blockbuster has hit the streets of Venezuela, but the illegal book lacks the magic of the original and the translator apologizes on virtually every page.

The rogue Spanish edition of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is peppered with notes from a translator who had to leave phrases in English with a Spanish-language explanation: “(Sorry, I didn’t understand what this means).”

The translation may leave a lot to be desired, but the books were selling quickly in downtown Caracas, where street vendors were getting about $25. The novel first appeared in English in June, but an authorized translation of the book into Spanish is not scheduled to go on sale in Latin America for several months.