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French versions of Agatha Christie to be revised to remove offensive or racist language – Liberation

The French translations of the work of Agatha Christie are thus aligned with the other international editions after the Mask editions. Over the winter, a British reviewer rewrote passages from Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Éditions du Masque has announced that the French translations of Agatha Christie will be the subject of “Revisions”in particular the deletion of terms considered offensive, such as physique or the origin of signs, “thus aligned with other international editions”.

“The French translations of Agatha Christie’s work are subject to the usual revisions and, over the years, incorporate the corrections requested by Agatha Christie Limited (the company that administers the author’s work, ed.), making them accessible to others adjust international editions‘ the publisher, which is part of the Hachette Group, said on Monday.

The British daily newspaper at the end of March The Telegraph had reported that several passages from the novels chronicling the investigations of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, originally published between 1920 and 1976, had been rewritten after peer review.

In particular, the publisher has changed or removed descriptions of certain foreign characters. As in Death on the Nile (1937), where the character of Mrs. Allerton complained about a group of children and laughed up or down their noses The Mysterious Affair of Styles (1920), in which Hercule Poirot suggested that another figure was “Of course a Jew”.

This isn’t the first time Agatha Christie’s title has changed. 2020 the crime thriller ten little niggersone of the most read and best-selling in the world, was renamed “They were ten” and the derogatory term, quoted 74 times in the original version, had been removed from the new edition.

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Recent changes to English author Roald Dahl’s children’s books have sparked outrage in the UK. References to weight, mental health, violence, or racial issues have been redacted from works such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach.

In the face of the outcry, publisher Puffin UK had pledged to continue publishing the original versions in a special collection. The author’s French publisher, Gallimard Jeunesse, had indicated that it would continue to publish the original versions.

The adventures of the famous British spy James Bond, written by Ian Fleming, has also been rewritten in English to remove certain passages deemed racist.