Actually, on a polish fantasy convention Polcon Dukaj told a story about the attempted translation of "Lód". Hea gathered a group of seven people, Polish to English translators, russophiles, cultural experts and what not. He said, that after two days they gave up after not being able to agree on the first page. The historical and cultural baggage this book carries is just too great to be even remotely translated into english, although he also mentioned that there is a steggering amount of pirate translations into russian.

Yeah I wonder how you can translate "Pomyślało się" :)

Dukaj is amazing, his "Other Songs" ("Inne Pieśni" in polish) is one of the best books I've ever read. I really hope it gets translated to english so non-polish speakers can read it.