In the UK, James Bond books will be rewritten for sensitive readers – Reuters

In literary circles, they considered that certain fragments of the spy’s story could hurt “sensitive readers”, and cleaned up the writer’s manuscript as they saw fit. Так, из книг исчезло оскорбries. Some descriptions of African Americans have been edited by editors to Western standards of tolerance or have been removed from the text altogether. Thus, in the original version of Live and Let Die, Fleming’s hero declares that the African criminals who trade in gold and diamonds are “pretty law-abiding guys, except when they’ve had too much to drink”. In the updated edition, clarification on the addiction of dark-skinned people to strong drinks will not be mentioned at all. However, “tolerant censorship” lacked references to d “other ethnic groups, including Asians. In the new version, Bond will continue to taunt his Goldfinger enemy’s henchman, the Korean Oddjob. In addition, Mr. Fleming has been pardoned for expressions such as “carefree woman “, and the “rainbow” community preferences were allowed to continue to be called a “stubborn handicap”.

It should be noted that in the past week some seemingly innocuous children’s books by Roald Dahl fell under the thumb of British publishers. The copyright holders conducted an audit of the writer’s fairy tales and decided to “adapt” the works to modern realities. So gluttonous August Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no longer entitled to be called “fat”, instead the hero has been described as “enormous”. Along the way, the editors decided to erase the “sexual” boundaries: they replaced the expression “mom and dad” with “parents”, and “girls and boys” with “children”. The phrase “she could use a good spanking” was delicately translated into “she could use a scolding”. The word “black” has traditionally become a red rag for hunters of tolerance and has completely disappeared from the pages of Dahl’s fairy tales, including when it came to describing the color of the giant’s coat. The graphomaniacs were so carried away by the “writing” that they decided to add whole sentences to the original texts. At the end of the paragraph where the author mentioned that witches’ wigs were bald, the editors included the following disclaimer: “There are many other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there are certainly no nothing wrong with that.”

However, publishers promise to send both versions of children’s books to bookstore shelves: traditional and edited. However, the attempt to transform Albion’s literary heritage failed to impress readers. Internet users describe the initiative as “genuine vandalism”. According to sources at Buckingham Palace, Queen Camilla herself expressed outrage. She advocated for the right of writers to express themselves. The news about “tolerant censorship” did not ignore the people of Downing Street. The representative of Prime Minister Sunak noted that the head of government favors the preservation of literary heritage and does not accept its treatment in a modern way.