The bestselling author Joanne Harris has turned down a US book deal after the publishers demanded she take out an “f-bomb” from the novel.
The Chocolat author, who lives near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, tweeted on Saturday: “Today I turned down a book deal in the US because they wanted to edit out my use of ‘the f-bomb’. I refused for two reasons: one, because I don’t use words accidentally. They matter. And second, because I don’t believe my use of the word ‘fuck’ harms anyone.”
Harris was this week appearing at the Faversham literature festival in Kent to talk about her latest novel, A Narrow Door.
She said the US deal she had been offered was for a special mail-order book club edition of A Narrow Door, a twisty psychological thriller that already has a mass-market deal there.
Today I turned down a book deal in the US because they wanted to edit out my use of “the f-bomb.” I refused for two reasons: one, because I don’t use words accidentally. They matter. And second, because I don’t believe my use of the word “fuck” harms anyone.
— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) February 19, 2022
Harris added: “I gave it some thought, and the decision was mine to take. That’s how publishing works, and I’m happy with my choice. In context it was a characterisation device, and would have sounded weak if I’d taken it out.
“But if an editor had pointed out an inadvertent error in the text – or something in the tone that might be hurtful – I would have listened, and most likely changed it. Standing up for the words I meant to use doesn’t mean refusing to change those I didn’t.”
Harris said that she did not feel offended by the request from the publisher, which she described as a house with a strong “cosy” branding, adding, “I understand, but that’s not me”.
“I made my choice and so did they,” she said. “I don’t remotely feel as if I’ve been ‘cancelled’.”
There has been a flurry of censorious action in the US against books in recent weeks, ranging from the controversial Tennessee pastor Greg Locke leading a mass book-burning of copies of Harry Potter and Twilight because of their supposed “demonic influences”, to a spate of book-bannings by schools, which some American teenagers are kicking back against.
Harris said she chose to make the decision public on the back of a discussion on social media prompted by John Boyne, the author of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, criticising the increasing use by authors and publishers of “sensitivity readers” to ensure that they are representing certain groups correctly or to avoid causing offence.
Harris was quoted in the media on her thoughts, and expanded on them on her blog, where she wrote: “I think a lot of people (some of them authors, most of them not) misunderstand the role of a sensitivity reader. That’s probably mostly because they’ve never used one, and are misled by the word ‘sensitivity’, which, in a world of toxic masculinity, is often mistaken for weakness. To these people, hiring someone to check one’s work for sensitivity purposes implies a surrendering of control, a shift in the balance of power.”
Her declining of the US book deal was, she said, an example of “how these professional choices are personal to us, and how we make them every day”.
