James Bond is the latest victim to fall to the censorship demands of "sensitivity readers," The Daily Telegraph reports.
The late British author Ian Fleming's works about an intrepid spy will be reissued in April to mark the 70-year anniversary since the publication of "Casino Royale," albeit with the "offensive" bits struck out.
In the runup to the presses, the company that owns the literary rights to Fleming's work, Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., hired a group of "sensitivity readers," according to the Telegraph, to review the classic texts.
As part of the development, they decided a disclaimer accompanying the reissued texts would 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."
The new updates, the Telegraph reported, are said to have expunged the use of the n-word. In many instances, the terms "Black person" or "Black man" are used to replace it, and in some cases, racial characteristics are omitted entirely.
One such example is when criminals escaping from Bond in "Dr. No" become "gangsters." In the same novel, the race of an immigration officer and that of a doctor now go unmentioned.
New editions of "Thunderball" omit the ethnicity of a barman, while in "Quantum of Solace," the butler's race is no longer mentioned. Similarly, in "Goldfinger," details about the race of the drivers in the World War II logistics unit the Red Ball Express, many of whom were Black service members, are absent, with only their past occupation as "ex-drivers" being referenced.
In a statement, the publishers said, "We at Ian Fleming Publications reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided our best course of action was to follow Ian's lead. We have made changes to 'Live and Let Die' that he himself authorized.
"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.
"We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April."
The announcement of the changes came one week after reports that Roald Dahl's books were being rewritten to remove offensive language.
Speaking on the Twitter Files and the changes made to Dahl's works, author Walter Kirn said the impulse to censor works has always been part of the human experience.
Speculating on what goals the ones imposing such censorship hope to achieve, Kirn said: "You'll never be disturbed by a word you don't know."
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