What Authors Hide About Sensitivity Readers

Although created with good intentions, the practice of sensitivity reading has a way of tipping over into absurdity — the most recent example being Anthony Horowitz’s new book, which features a Native American character. It was dinged for two instances of ostensible offence. A description of a man as having a face that “could have been carved out of wood” was flagged for its alleged evocation of the wooden “cigar store Indians” that used to stand outside American tobacco shops in the 19th century. And a scene in which the character picked up a scalpel: the word “scalpel”, though etymologically unrelated, just looks too much like the word “scalp”.