Ian Fleming’s James Bond books are being reprinted with less racism
But not zero racism, and there will also still be some classic Bond misogyny
Recently, after the decision to reprint Roald Dahl’s books with less problematic language was met with an immediate and predictable backlash from pretty much everyone, the company that owns Dahl’s publishing rights backed down and agreed to keep both the new and classic editions of the books in print. That means that future generations will still be able to read about the times Dahl referred to a character in one of his books as “fat” or “ugly” (and then maybe they can read about some of the times Dahl said even worse things about real people), but the same can’t be said for another iconic British author’s works.
The Telegraph says that newly edited versions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books are going to be released in honor of the series’ 70th anniversary, but there are some twists here beyond what happened with Dahl—namely that Fleming’s books are being altered so their less overtly racist, and also Fleming himself sort of approved of this (despite dying nearly 60 years ago).
The changes all seem to be specifically related to Fleming’s depiction of Black people, with The Telegraph saying that the N-word has been “almost entirely expunged” (wow, almost!) and replaced with “Black person,” though direct references to a character’s ethnicity have been totally omitted in other cases. The way The Telegraph story describes it, it sounds like that alone might trim these books down by 100 pages each:
