Salman Rushdie has criticised “comical” efforts to make James Bond politically correct, warning that freedom of speech is under threat in the West like never before.
The author said that classic books should be accepted as products of their time and “if that’s difficult to take, don’t read them”.
Accepting the Freedom to Publish award at the British Book Awards, Rushdie sent a video message. He is recovering at his New York home from injuries sustained in a knife attack last summer.
He said: “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.
“It’s very important, I think, that such pressures should be resisted. And 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.
“Obviously there are parts of the world where censorship has been prevalent for a long time: Russia, China, in some ways India as well. But 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.”
He went on: “I have to say it has also been alarming to see publishers looking to — how can I put this — bowdlerise the work of such people as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming.
“I have to say 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.”
Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, which owns the rights to the author’s work, commissioned sensitivity readers to review his novels. Some depictions of black characters were reworked or removed as a result.
Roald Dahl’s books were extensively edited to remove potentially offensive descriptions, including references to Augustus Gloop being fat and Mrs Twit being fearfully ugly.
Rushdie said he was accepting his award for “everyone fighting the fight” for freedom of speech.
The British Book Awards were held at the Grosvenor House hotel in London.
Davina McCall’s guide to the menopause won the overall Book of the Year Prize, which rewards “unforgettable writing, exceptional sales and an outstanding approach to publishing”.
The judges hailed Menopausing as “an authoritative and useful yet entertaining book about an important and ignored subject”.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, chair of the judging panel, said: “This book helped get a nationwide conversation going about menopause and captured the zeitgeist.”
McCall has become a champion of menopausal women, with two Channel 4 series accompanying the book. It was co-written with Naomi Potter, a menopause specialist.
Bonnie Garmus was named Author of the Year for Lessons in Chemistry, a debut novel she wrote at 64 years old.
Babel by R.F. Kuang, a historical fantasy set in a fictional Oxford, was named Fiction Book of the Year.
S.F. Said won the children’s fiction category for Tyger, while Louise Kennedy picked up the Debut prize for Trespasses.
The prize for best non-fiction audiobook went to Richard E. Grant for A Pocketful of Happiness, a memoir in tribute to his late wife, Joan. The title comes from Joan’s entreaty, shortly before her death in 2021, for him to find a pocketful of happiness in every day.
The Daily Telegraph, London
