<
https://lithub.com/why-i-decided-to-update-the-language-in-ursula-k-le-guins-childrens-books/>
"In a 1973 letter to the editor of
The Horn Book Magazine, my mother, Ursula
K. Le Guin, took Roald Dahl’s books to task. While acknowledging her own
“feelings of unease” about Dahl’s work, she remarked that “…kids are very
tough. What they find for themselves they should be able to read for
themselves.” I had this in mind as I read about wording changes in new editions
of Dahl.
As Ursula’s literary executor, I recently faced a similar decision. My mother,
known for her young adult and adult novels, also wrote several children’s
books. A multigenerational fan base has kept her
Catwings books in print in
the US since the 1980s. I was excited to move the books to a new publisher last
year.
As we began work on the new editions, I received an unexpected note from the
editor: “I’m writing to propose several minor changes to the language… to
remove words that now have a different connotation than when the books were
originally published.” The words in question were “lame,” “queer,” “dumb,” and
“stupid,” a total of seven instances across three books.
Ursula revised herself throughout her career, notably
The Left Hand of
Darkness, which takes place on a planet where sex and gender are fluid. Years
after publication, during a later wave of feminism, she received criticism for
the novel’s use of “he” as default personal pronoun. After some defensiveness,
Ursula demonstrated, through essays and revisions of the text, how she might
have approached things differently."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
