New Edition of Huckleberry Finn Will Replace The “N” Word

Two scholars are reediting American literature classic book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The new edition will replace the word “nigger”—which appears 219 times— and the word “Injun” with the word “slave,” Publishers Weekly reported Tuesday.

“For decades, [Huckleberry Finn] has been disappearing from grade school curricula across the country, relegated to optional reading lists, or banned outright, appearing again and again on lists of the nation’s most challenged books, and all for its repeated use of a single, singularly offensive word,” reported Publishers Weekly.

“This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind. … Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century,” said Alan Gribben, one of the two scholars who are reediting the book.

“I’m hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified,” Gribben told Publishers Weekly.

Gribben and NewSouth Books will publish the new version in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that will sell for $24.95 U.S. and will be on the bookstore shelves on February.

Source: Publishers Weekly