Ham-fisted censors strip US books

Is Chekhov too racy for high-school students? Is Isaac Bashevis Singer too Jewish?

It seems New York state's board of education thinks so, because its members have been going through the works of eminent authors and excising all references to race, religion, ethnicity, sex, nudity, alcohol, drugs, bad language and anything else that might cause offence to anyone.

This ham-fisted attempt at political correctness has nevertheless ended up causing enormous offence – to the living writers whose works were doctored without consent.

Mr Singer discovered that all references to Judaism, his abiding theme, had been removed. In an excerpt from a short story by Ernesto Galarza a "gringo" became "an American" and a "fat" boy was described as "heavy". Today, the board of education will be denounced by an array of literary and civil liberties associations.