The literary executor of Usula K. Le Guin is allowing changes to her YA/youth books

[thewayne]

In this case, her executor is her son, so he does have firsthand knowledge of some of her thinking.

It's an interesting essay on a very tough issue, with good points and bad points - IMO. We've seen Road Dahl's publisher back off on updating his books and they've split their printing stream, still issuing original books under a different imprint. Ian Fleming's James Bond books are being revised to remove offensive language.

I find the second and third paragraphs before the end to be quite good and worth contemplation.

https://lithub.com/why-i-decided-to-update-the-language-in-ursula-k-le-guins-childrens-books/

Comments

[silveradept]

It sounds like the ultimate decision was that the language should be changed to avoid unintended bad meanings and which would keep the intended meanings of the sentences. That seems like a reasonable edit to make, and flagging up that the text has been changed from the original is useful. Even better if they include the original sentences in an index in the back, possibly with some explanation as to why things got changed.

[thewayne]

I really like the suggestion of your last sentence!  THAT would provide useful context for discussion and reflection.

[silveradept]

That's generally the thing that translators do, and sometimes, books of the past are really getting translated rather than merely edited, so it makes sense to include some useful notes in the back if you want to go to the effort.