Is the rise of sensitivity readers progress or censorship?

To what extent do publishers have to protect the sensibilities of readers? Photo / 123rf

They are supposed to make authors cancel-proof by calling out controversy before it erupts. But now it's the most diverse job in publishing. By Rosamund Urwin

As with most flare-ups in publishing's fierce culture wars, the setting of the latest skirmish was Twitter. John Boyne, best known for his 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, criticised the use of "sensitivity readers" before a book is published to point out areas that may cause offence. "The best writers challenge, disturb, outrage. Imagine [...] Dickens with a SR! No serious writer would ever allow their work to be so sanitised," Boyne tweeted this month.

Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat, took umbrage: "I think you're confusing sensitivity with weakness ... It takes courage for an author to admit they may not have all the answers." Dickens had revised his depiction of the Jewish character Fagin in Oliver Twist, she argued, removing many references to the character's religion after corresponding with a Jewish critic, Eliza Davis. "He showed the capacity to grow. Perhaps that's what makes a great writer."

Other writers are incensed by sensitivity readers. None more so than Kate Clanchy, the author who was accused of using racial tropes in her 2019 memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. After the furore, her former publishers, Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, sent the book to a number of sensitivity readers to scour the text for problematic content before it was reprinted. She claims that she was asked not to mention that the Taliban were terrorists; not to use "handicap" in the sense of "impede" and not to state that homosexuality was historically taboo in Nepal. Clanchy also claims that a sensitivity reader flagged her use of "gay", saying that she should have used "LGBTQ", but that they had just done a search sweep for the word, and therefore accidentally also suggested the London nightclub G-A-Y be renamed.

She is not alone: in 2020 a friend of Bruce Wagner, the American writer, claimed that he had ended his agreement with his publisher after being told that the word "fat" was problematic, he believed thanks to a sensitivity reader.

Sensitivity readers are the most talked-about people in publishing, just not often in public. For this article I approached more than 25 writers, agents, publishers and sensitivity readers — yet the subject is so contentious that many wouldn't speak and only two agreed to be named.

Within a few years the practice has spread from the US to the UK. It has reached the world of cookbooks, with Jamie Oliver revealing in Culture last month that "teams of cultural appropriation specialists" vet his recipes.

Sensitivity readers are hired by editors and authors to review manuscripts before publication. They check for stereotypes, dialogue that doesn't ring true or language that may cause offence. Although much of their work focuses on race, advice is offered in subjects ranging from "dating while fat" to "tiger parents" and age-gap relationships.

A distinguished literary agent in London says authors have started to request the service "because they are so afraid of giving unintended offence". The fallout from the Clanchy affair has sharpened minds. "No one wants to be the next Kate Clanchy," another agent adds.

Pan Macmillan recently announced that it would no longer work with Clanchy. Instead she will be published by Swift Press, whose co-founder, Mark Richards, says that the company will not be using sensitivity readers out of principle unless an author requests one. "We don't think they add anything to our editorial process."

Clanchy told the website Unherd: "I thought carefully about all the notes I had been given and, in the end, adopted none of the suggestions proffered by the readers."

Those who welcome sensitivity readers see them as a way to ensure authenticity when writing about communities a writer does not belong to, in the same way a sci-fi writer would consult a scientist. "I don't see them as being antagonistic to free speech; it's more a different layer of research," Harris says.

The other side decries them as a way in which editors abdicate responsibility for a text or even as a form of censorship. The novelist Lionel Shriver once described their deployment as "pandering to the thin-skinned" and claimed: "The day my novels are sent to a sensitivity reader is the day I quit." Editors who privately sympathise with her say that readers do not have a right not to be offended.

"The sensitivity reader reads every book ... and thinks, 'What potential offence could I draw?'" says one. "Would American Psycho or The Satanic Verses be published now? Would Portnoy's Complaint?"

Another interpretation is that sensitivity readers are an attempt to "cancel-proof" books. That move seems understandable in a climate in which novels can be judged, and slated, for a single passage shared on social media. One sensitivity reader even advertises their services by saying: "You don't need to wait for Twitter to call out your book, you can hire me to prevent that from happening."

It is certainly much cheaper to hire a sensitivity reader (from about £100 to more than £500 for a novel) than it would be to cancel a book launch, postpone a book's release or take a reputational hit.

"Terror reigns in the industry about what Twitter will say about anything," says the head of one publishing house. "My theory is that [sensitivity readers] are an insurance policy — if someone says, 'This is racist,' the [editor] can say, 'It was read by a sensitivity reader.' They get you off the hook."

I put that suggestion to Hannah Givens, a sensitivity reader. "I could see a less-than-ethical publisher trying to blame a sensitivity reader after a scandal, but I don't see it carrying much weight," she says. Givens, 30, mostly advises publishers and authors on autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conditions she has. She sees herself as a consultant, adding: "I've become very sensitive to the textual cues: that I'm being talked about as a problem, not talked to as a person." An editor, she says, will usually pick up on anything "overtly problematic"; her job is to spot more subtle issues.

Editors often hire more than one sensitivity reader, but one author says this can be problematic: "I had three sensitivity readers and they had three different, contradictory perspectives on how my book should change. It's all shades of grey."

This is not the only complaint. An Anglo-Asian author objected to their use because it implies one individual can represent the breadth of a minority's experience ("We don't all think the same!"). She says: "The industry is very white and middle class, and I want it to be more diverse rather than to outsource diversity like this."

Sensitivity readers are part of a broader fixation on identity politics in publishing, but there are blind spots. A writer, who is Jewish, says: "There's a very successful recent novel by a black author in which there's a Jewish character who's obsessed with money. To me the portrayal's clearly antisemitic. In fact, exactly like Kate Clanchy, the author criticised someone for telling her it was racist on Twitter. But she wasn't cancelled, because publishing's fixation on race doesn't extend to us."

One editor argues that the fear of offence is changing the way publishers read novels. "Normally agents and editors read a book thinking, 'Do I love this, would other people love this?' Now a new concern has sprung up: 'Will other people object to it?'" she says. "You're worrying whether what characters say can be taken out of context, screengrabbed and put on Twitter, and that the author will be punished. Books are judged by people who haven't read them more than ever before."

She likens it to the Bad Sex prize: "That takes a book that may or may not be a great piece of writing, reads the sex scenes out of context in a silly voice and everyone laughs. It's good fun but it's not a fair way to assess books. This is worse, because it's not even good-hearted; it's chasing offence."

The head of a publishing house agrees, adding: "People need to run the risk of offending, otherwise I don't see the value of a lot of books. Do you want to be confronted with the real nature of society or do you want a nice bedtime story? If the latter, read a children's book; read Harry Potter!" She pauses. "Oh no, you can't even do that any more!"

The Times