"I've never really thought of it as an insult, more a term of endearment," he says.
And his version of the Russian literary masterpiece - which starts with the phrase "bloody hell" - is about being flippant and irreverent.
"It's just a good exclamation of surprise," Louis jokes.
Elsewhere, a noble is a fair dinkum, while the death of an important character is announced by "he's cactus".
"It changes the tone quite significantly," Louis laughs.
That all changed earlier this year when a New York-based tech writer stumbled across the bogan version, posting excerpts from Louis' book in which he describes Napoleon as an "alright bloke", the high-ranking Prince Vasili as "a pretty big deal" and Princess Bolkónskaya as "smoking hot".
"Out of nowhere, it just went berserk. Overnight, I sold 50 copies," Louis says.
The father-of-two thinks the US interest in his bogan translation might be due to a "Bluey effect" given the popular Australian children's cartoon has been the most streamed show in the US for almost two years.
"Aussie-isms are in vogue over there at the moment".
At first glance Tolstoy's book, filled with the lives of rich, powerful Russians, seems worlds apart from modern-day Australia.
But Louis argues bogan is the ultimate equaliser as the informal slang works across the social spectrum, whether it's in Australia or the world of Russian aristocrats.
"There's a whole lot of different types of bogan," Louis says.
Mark Gwynn, a senior researcher at the Australian National University, who helps compile the Australian National Dictionary, agrees. "Bogans can be wealthy, poor, or in the middle so it's more about the way they behave, dress, socialise and talk," he says.
He says in more recent times, the term has also been used affectionately of someone considered a bogan or even in reference to oneself such as the term "inner bogan".
And speaking "bogan" refers to casual speech with lots of local sayings, he says.
"Most Australians would know if you said 'speaks bogan' or 'bogan Australian' that the language would be highly informal with many slang and colloquial words and phrases, including uniquely Australian ones."
But there's no direct translation for the term in proper English – it's uniquely Australian.
"Bogans can live in [both] rural and urban areas so they don't equate to hillbillies, bumpkins, yokels, rustics," Gwynn says.
Nor are bogans the same as rednecks, as they can hold varied political views, while the British term "chav" – also typically used in a derogatory way to describe people from a poor background - doesn't apply either.
Those shape-shifting bogan qualities along with Louis' varied resume - kitchen hand, energy analyst, Uber driver, punk rocker, Tokyo resident – makes him "strangely qualified" to create a bogan translation.