Manifestation of intolerance: writer Judy Bloom announced political censorship in the United States

American writer Judy Bloom, author of a number of children's books about the boy Peter Hatcher ("Peter the Ordinary", "Sheila the Magnificent", "Superfaj"), criticized censorship in the United States after some of her works were excluded from the school curriculum. In particular, the novel "Forever", which tells about the first teenage love, was reviewed. Bloom said such bans were akin to the political censorship of the 1980s.

"I went through the 1980s, when the ban on publishing books was in full swing. And it was terrible. And then libraries and schools began to develop measures (thanks to which. - RT) we saw how the desire to engage in book censorship began to decline, "Bloom quotes Deadline. "Now it's back, and it's back in a much worse form — and that's in America — and it's come back in such a worse way than it did in the 1980s because it's become political."

The authorities of Martin County in Florida considered that the novel has no place in the school library because of the pronounced sexual content. At the same time, some books by James Patterson, a writer mainly of the detective genre, and Tony Morrison, a Nobel Prize winner, were banned.

At the same time, the British publishing house Pan Macmillan considered Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind problematic. According to The Daily Telegraph, in the warning that now accompanies the text of the work, they called the images of the era of slavery "offensive or even pernicious" because of the content of racist elements.

"The novel features unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical descriptions, as well as disturbing themes, character characteristics, language and images," the explanation says.

In addition, the publishing house reported that the new books are supplemented by a preface by Philippa Gregory ("Another of the Boleyn family"), explaining the "superiority of whites" in a historical context. The publisher chose the white writer "to prevent a minority author from being subjected to emotional stress." The text of the novel itself was not affected by the innovations.

At the end of March 2023, it also became known that the American company HarperCollins made changes to the books of Agatha Christie because of the sensitivity of modern audiences to the problems of the past, removing all potentially offensive epithets that described race and ethnicity or the bodies of the characters.

In particular, certain excerpts from the series of books about detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple were edited. For example, the new editions do not contain words such as Jew, Gypsy, Native or Oriental. In addition, phrases characterizing the female figure have been removed, for example, the body seems to be "made of black marble". Meanwhile, the expressions "such wonderful white teeth" and "beautiful teeth" were removed.

Moreover, in the works about detectives, the internal monologues of Poirot and Miss Marple were corrected, as well as dialogues that spoke about characters unpleasant to other characters. For example, in previously published versions of the detective novel Death on the Nile, Mrs. Allerton complains about children.

"They come back and stare at me again with their nasty eyes, and their noses are nasty too, and I have to admit that I don't like children," the original reads. In the new version, the snippet goes like this: "Come back and stare at me again. I have to admit that I don't like children."

In the future, HarperCollins plans to re-release even more corrected literary works.

By the way, in 2020, France decided to republish Agatha Christie's book "Ten Negroes" with a new title - "There Were Ten of Them". The word "negroes", which appeared 74 times in the book, was replaced by "soldiers", and the Negro Island became Soldatsky. The edits were approved by the great-grandson of Christy James Pritchard, who heads the company Agatha Christie Limited, which owns the rights to the works of the writer. According to him, the novel uses expressions that have lost their relevance, but can hurt the feelings of readers.

Earlier, various amendments were made to the books of British writers Ian Fleming about the agent 007 James Bond and Roald Dahl. In Fleming's novels, instead of a term describing an African-American, it is "black man." In addition, from the novels "Ball Lightning" and "Goldfinger", as well as the story "Quantum of Consolation", all references to ethnic groups were removed.

In February 2023, in Dahl's books, wording related to mental health, physique, as well as gender and racial affiliation of the characters was replaced or even cut out. For example, from the story "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" removed such epithets as "freak" and "crazy", as well as other references to the appearance and psychological portrait of the characters. So, the "very fat boy" August Stupid in the new edition became simply "huge". And the "fat seller" is the "seller", despite the fact that the author's description of the hero, implying an obese person, has been preserved.

The publisher explained the measure by expressing respect for the "cultural sensitivity" of the modern audience, as well as the desire to make the works more acceptable to the new reader.

Such changes caused a storm of criticism from users of social networks. According to the audience, the desire of publishers to protect readers from various "cultural, gender and racial stereotypes" reaches the point of absurdity and turns into totalitarian censorship. And fans of James Bond novels called on copyright holders to stop the "literary lynching" of works altogether.

The trend previously affected the books of the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Her novel The Handmaid's Tale was often criticized and banned from being studied in schools. Atwood, in protest against censorship, released a special edition that does not ignite even under the sight of a flamethrower.

In August 2021, British writer Judith Kerr was accused of old-fashioned depiction of the family and the strengthening of sexual inequality because of the children's book "The Tiger Who Came to Drink Tea." According to Rachel Adamson, an activist of the charity Zero Tolerance, gender stereotypes reflected in the publication lead to cruel treatment and violence against girls and women.