The publishing house puffins who owns the rights to the books, Ian Fleming Publicationshas commissioned a review of the texts to a committee of readers and has decided to bring out the novels again without potentially offensive racial allusions, according to the English newspaper “Sunday Telegraph”.
The British spy, inspired by the life of his creator Ian Fleming, will no longer say “black”, an offensive term used to designate slaves of African origin in English. Agent 007 novels will be completely republished without references that could be considered racist, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the appearance of the first book of the James Bond series, “Royal Casino”.
“A number of updates have been made to this edition, while keeping it as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set,” the notice, revealed by the Sunday Telegraph, said. Following the controversy, Puffin said that in addition to the altered versions, he plans to reissue the original books intact at the same time.
Also, a warning will be introduced in the republished books that will remind that “this book was written at a time when terms and attitudes that could be considered offensive by modern readers were common.” The news comes after this week the publisher of the British writer’s books Roald Dahlauthor of “Matilda” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” announce that he will modify parts of his works to eliminate possible offensive allusions.
“We reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided the best thing to do was follow the author’s lead. We have introduced in “Live and let die”, the changes that he himself authorized. Following his approach, we have examined the cases of various racial terms in the books and we have eliminated several words or have replaced them with terms that are more accepted today, but in keeping with the time in which the books were written,” he reported. Ian Fleming Publications.
The measure affects novels “Thunderball”, “For your eyes only” or “Goldfinger” starring the English spy. The racist terms with which agent 007 designated African-Americans were seen in various publications of the saga. For example in “Live and Let Die” (1954), Bond’s view that Africans working in the gold and diamond trades are “quite law-abiding fellows, except when they’ve had too much to drink” has been changed to “quite law-abiding fellows.” ”.
The James Bond film saga is one of the most successful franchises of all time in the seventh art, maintaining a joint collection of 7,400 million euros, only surpassed by Star Wars. Daniel Craig, the last actor to play the British spy, he retired from the role of the spy after his last film in 2021.
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