Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is a classic children’s book. Though the book has been translated into Spanish, an Argentine publishing company wanted to take it a step further: It wanted a version that embraced gender-neutral language. While some have welcomed the change, others say the company has messed with an iconic piece of literature.
Published by Ethos Traductora, the book uses gender-neutral language. Since Spanish prioritizes masculine pronouns, people have started using words that is more inclusive of gender non conforming individuals (i.e. Latinx instead of Latinos to address a group of people with Latin American heritage). However, the book doesn’t use the X and instead uses an E (for example, todes instead of todas or todos, and les instead of los or las).
“Given the characters of the text (with a reader who is addressed in affective and plain language), we decide to opt for the ‘e’ as a marker of non-sexist language, since it can be read aloud,” said Gabriela Villalba, the director of Ethos, to BioBioChile.
There’s an additional version of The Little Prince called La Principesa, published by Spain’s Espejos Literarios, which has also caused commotion online.