I had a similar question re a living (still, I hope) poet in Athens. When I last visited him he gave me oral permission to translate him without hindrance. But that, alas, was worth the paper it wasn't printed on. His son (a visual artist) soon became the email gatekeeper for his father, and very chary about replying to me when I asked for a follow-through. Soon the son stopped replying altogether. Since the percentage of his father's output that I wanted to translate was very small, and didn't amount to much in absolute terms anyway, I decided that the son could contemplate his navel forever without my bothering him, and I left that arena to the crows.
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