BY ARMANI SYED
GOOD QUESTION
ONLY DAYS AFTER A BRITISH PUBLISHER CAME UNDER fire for edits made to Roald Dahl’s children’s books, the Telegraph revealed Feb. 25 that James Bond was getting the same treatment. Just as Dahl’s books would be adjusted to remove language that today’s readers deem offensive, the estate of Bond author Ian Fleming has conducted a sensitivity review before an upcoming reissue of the spy novels.
It’s hard for anyone to argue in favor of the language in question—in Dahl’s case, offensive terms relating to race, gender, weight, and mental health have been rewritten; in Fleming’s, language describing Black people has particularly come under the microscope, though Bond’s notorious attitude toward women will reportedly remain. The reaction to the news is a case study in both why such a decision would draw scrutiny, and why publishers and authors’ estates may see it as in their best interest regardless.
Dahl, whose works have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, is an illustrative example. In the years since his death in 1990, some have turned their focus to a number of racist and sexist tropes in his works. (Before his death too: in the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oompa-Loompas were pygmies from “the deepest and darkest part of the African jungle”; that changed after pressure from Dahl’s publisher.) Puffin Books, a children’s imprint of Penguin Books, worked with the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC), which is now owned by Netflix, to review the texts before issuing new editions. RDSC says it hopes the resulting rewrites ensure that “Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.”
The review was conducted with Inclusive Minds, an organization that works with the children’s-book world to support diversity and inclusion. The group told TIME they “do not write, edit, or rewrite texts, but provide book creators with valuable insight from people with the relevant lived experience that they can take into consideration.”
Hundreds of changes have reportedly been made to Dahl’s body of work. These edits include a line in James and the Giant P
