Racial references have been removed from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels following a sensitivity review.
Terms such as the n-word, which featured in his writing from the 1950s and 1960s, have been edited out of new editions of the 007 books, which are set for reissue in April.
Some depictions of Black people have also been reworked or removed, but references to other ethnicities, including the use of a term for east Asian people and Bond’s mocking views of Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman, remain.
Revised lines include Bond’s assessment in Live and Let Die that African would-be criminals are “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much”, which has been changed to “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought”.
However, references to the “sweet tang of rape”, “blithering women”, doing a “man’s work”, and homosexuality being described as a “stubborn disability” have been kept in, reported The Daily Telegraph.
A disclaimer accompanying the new editions is expected to read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.
Hellbound and Down 