Anthony Horowitz admits he refused to write his Bond novels for 'a modern audience' as he wades into contentious sensitivity row that saw Roald Dahl 's beloved books rewritten to 'remove' offensive language
Anthony Horowitz has waded in on the sensitivity row which saw Roald Dahl’s books rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ language and said he won’t have ‘people telling me what I have to do’.
The 69-year-old best-selling British author was asked by the Ian Fleming estate to write three continuation books of the James Bond books With a Mind to Kill, Trigger Mortis and Forever and a Day.
But when asked how he changed his versions to suit a modern audience, the Alex Rider novelist refuted the question and said: ‘The first thing I did not do was update it for a modern audience.’
He continued: ‘I set it in the 1950s as I believe Bond only exists in his world. I did not give in to anything. He is still a womaniser, a smoker, and a killer.
‘There was nothing to change, not even the language, he used the word “bottom” a lot so I made sure I used it in every book.
Anthony Horowitz has waded in on the sensitivity row which saw Roald Dahl ’s books rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ language and said he won’t have ‘people telling me what I have to do’
Last year Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books were rewritten by sensitivity gurus to remove language they deemed offensive with the word ‘fat’ removed from every book and the Oompa Loompas were made gender neutral
‘I did not change him to match people’s sensibilities.’
Last year Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books were rewritten by sensitivity gurus to remove language they deemed offensive with the word ‘fat’ removed from every book and the Oompa Loompas were made gender neutral.
Horowitz’s own publishing company, Puffin, hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of Dahl’s text and made extensive changes across the Matilda author’s work to make sure the books could be ‘continued to be enjoyed by all today’.
Speaking at the Hay Literature Festival on Thursday, Horowitz waded in on the controversial row and said: ‘My position on this is very simple, it’s that I totally refute the need for what I think is a bad idea to always try to cut out.
‘Look, I don’t want to offend my readers, I’m not that stupid to write something that’s going to offend a community or an ethnicity.
‘But at the same time when you start chopping out stuff that’s offensive, which they famously did with Roald Dahl books and they’re now doing it with the Ian Flemming books here and there, I think you are actually shooting yourself in the foot.’
The James Bond author Ian Flemming, who died in 1964, and Agatha Christie, who died in 1976 have both had their extensive portfolio of work edited by sensitivity readers.
Last year, Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple murder mysteries set between 1920 and 1976 to remove potentially racist language.
Horowitz was asked by the Ian Fleming estate to write three continuation books of the James Bond books With a Mind to Kill, Trigger Mortis and Forever and a Day
The edits cut references to ethnicity such as describing a character as black, Jewish or Gypsy and a judge’s ‘Indian temper’ or a woman’s torso as ‘of black marble’.
Terms such as ‘Oriental’ of the N-word were removed and the word ‘natives’ was replaced with ‘local’.
The Magpie Murders author continued: ‘When you read an original Ian Flemming book, there are passages in it that offend you but chopping it out doesn’t make the book better, all it does is it takes away the memory of how far we have come.
‘Now here we are in the 21st century and we don’t say things about certain people - that’s gone and we should be proud of the progress we’ve made and the only way we'll know about that is to keep in mind how we were thirty or forty years ago.
‘I am pro including a diverse cast of characters and including as much of the world as we can into a single book but what I am not pro is people telling me that is what I have to do - there is a difference.’