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The author of The Satanic Verses has said publishers re-editing the James Bond spy stories for reasons of political correctness “in light of today’s attitudes” are acting in a “remarkably alarming” fashion.
Rushdie, who lost sight in one eye last year when he was stabbed by an Islamic extremist, criticised the “bowdlerisation” of works by Fleming and the children’s writer Dahl, both of whom have had certain words and phrases in their books removed completely or altered.
“It has been alarming to see publishers looking to bowdlerise the work of such people as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming,” the 1981 Booker Prize winner said. Speaking via video link at the British Book Awards in London on Monday, he said: “The idea that James Bond could be made politically correct is almost comical.
“I think that has to be resisted. Books have to come to us from their time and be of their time, and if that’s difficult to take, don’t read them. Read another book, but don’t try and remake yesterday’s work in the light of today’s attitudes.”
READ MORE: Salman Rushdie blasts Roald Dahl rewrites as ‘absurd censorship’
His remarks followed news that Puffin, Dahl’s publisher, had made hundreds of alterations to his stories, erasing much of his colourful language and turns of phrase. Back in February Rushdie labelled it “absurd censorship”. And before an April re-release of Fleming’s Bond novels, it was disclosed that they had been edited, removing references to race.
Rushdie spoke from New York as he received the Freedom to Publish award, given to authors, publishers or booksellers who had made exceptional stands for freedom of expression. Rushdie said he accepted the award on behalf of “everyone fighting the fight” for freedom of speech.
He added: “The freedom to publish, of course, is also the freedom to read, the freedom to write what you want, to be able to choose what you want to read and not have it decided for you externally — and the freedom to publish books that ought to be published and sometimes are difficult to publish because of pressure from this or that group.”
These pressures should be resisted, he continued. “We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish, has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West.”
Pointing to the instances of censorship in Russia, China, and even India, Rushdie warned: “In the countries of the West, until recently, there was a fair measure of freedom in the area of publishing. Now, sitting here in the United States, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries and books for children in schools, the attack on the idea of libraries themselves. It’s quite remarkably alarming and we need to be very aware of it and to fight against it very hard.”
Author Monica Ali, who handed Rushdie his award, said no other author had been “more courageous, steadfast” in pursuing truth and artistic freedom. “Now, more than ever, we have to hold fast to the absolute centrality of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought,” she said.
Philip Jones, chairman of the British Book Awards judges and editor of The Bookseller, said Rushdie’s award could not have come at a more important moment. “Freedom to Publish is about the right to read, write, speak and hear without interference, and without the dire consequences so often now threatened by those who would restrict, censor and circumscribe,” he said. “More than most, Rushdie has lived his defiance, and continues to pay a huge price for it.”
