The James Bond Novels Will Be Reissued With Racist Language Removed
The James Bond novels are getting a progressive edit nearly 70 years after Ian Fleming penned the first book of the series.
The full set of thrillers will be reissued in April with a number of problematic racial references removed. Each paperback will also carry a disclaimer that explains some prose may be “considered offensive by modern readers,” as reported by The Telegraph.
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Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, which owns the rights to the author’s work, commissioned a review by sensitivity readers to see what revisions were needed. The N-word was removed in almost all cases and replaced with “Black person” or “Black man.” Other references to race have been edited, according to The Telegraph.
In Live and Let Die (1954), for instance, Bond’s description of Africans in the gold and diamond trades as “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much” has been changed to “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.” Another section in which Bond visits a Harlem nightclub and sees the “audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough” has been switched to “Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”
In addition, the new disclaimer will read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”
Ian Fleming Publications told The Telegraph that they were actually following Fleming’s lead. “We have made changes to Live and Let Die that he himself authorized,” the company said. “Following Ian’s approach, we looked at the instances of several racial terms across the books and removed a number of individual words or else swapped them for terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the period in which the books were written.”
The revised paperbacks will be released in April to mark 70 years since the printing of Casino Royale.
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