Chinese publisher mistakenly releases erotic fairy tales

LONDON - A publishing house in China had to recall a collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales after it translated an erotic Japanese version of the stories by mistake.

The edition of the kids’ book, which hit the shelves in China in October, included a reworking of the story of Snow White in which she romps with the seven dwarves.

Red-faced executives at Beijing Mediatime, the publishing house, said a mix-up had occurred when they could not find the original German version of the book to translate, and had turned to a Japanese version instead.

Around 150 copies of the book were sold in Hangzhou before complaints from customers led to the recall.

“Readers called us to say they did not think the book was healthy for children,” the Telegraph quoted Li Yong, the deputy chairman of the publisher, as saying.

“After that, we pulled all the copies off shelves across the country before last Wednesday.”

Asked how the mix-up had gone unspotted, the publisher said the situation had been “complicated”.

Another executive from Beijing Mediatime, only named as Yuan, told the Zhejiang Morning Express newspaper: “We cannot read Japanese, so we cannot make a comparison, but we trusted the translator, who is a post graduate student.” (ANI)