New chapter for Huckleberry Finn as 'demeaning' n-word written out

ONE of the United States' most famous novels has been given a controversial rewrite to make it acceptable to students in the 21st century.

• Huckleberry Finn's adventures in America's Deep South with a slave called Jim have been translated into many formats, including a television show in the 1960s

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's 1884 classic about life along the Mississippi River during the slavery era, has long been banned in many schools across the US for the author's liberal use of the offensive racial term "n*****".

Now, a university professor has republished Twain's original work with all 219 uses replaced with the word "slave". The rewrite has also expunged all mentions of "injun", a derogatory reference to native Indians.

The book and its prequel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, have been released in a new single-volume edition by an Alabama-based publishing house in the hope the stories will return to the school curriculum.

"This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colourblind," said Alan Gribben, an English professor who lectures on Twain's work at Alabama's Auburn University.

Instead, he said, his intention was simply to place a "cleaned-up" version of a book considered by many as the great American novel back in the hands of a new generation of young readers.

He said he had spent 20 years using the word "slave" in place of "n*****" during lectures and at public readings of the two books, but that "the n-word and its demeaning implications" remained a hurdle in the published works too difficult for American school authorities to overcome.

"I was sought out by local teachers, and they said (they] would love to teach this novel, and Huckleberry Finn, but (didn't feel they could] do it. In the new classroom, it's not acceptable.

"Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

Prof Gribben acknowledged, however, that his actions might be seen by some as censorship of one of America's finest authors.

"I'm hoping people will welcome this new option, but I suspect textual purists will be horrified," he said. "Already, one professor told me he is very disappointed I was involved."

Thomas Wortham, a Twain scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "A book like Prof Gribben has imagined doesn't challenge children (and their teachers] to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'."

When it was first published in 1884, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presented a colourful, vernacular account of life in the Deep South during the middle of the 19th century.

The story of Finn's travels along the Mississippi with a slave called Jim challenged Americans to examine their own attitudes towards racial minorities and the book quickly became a bestseller.Ernest Hemingway referred to it as the source of "all modern American literature."

Twain was less enamoured, and famously called a classic "a book which people praise and don't read". Despite its initial popularity, it fell out of favour with teachers in the 20th century for its coarse language and racial stereotypes and was either banned in schools or relegated to optional reading lists.