PARIS, June 6: Oriana Fallaci’s book, Anger and Pride, which has made waves around the globe for its often racist and unfair depiction of the world of Islam, has finally found a publisher in France, but in an edition that is presented as “revised and corrected by the author.”

Although the book had been proposed to the leading French publishing houses, among them Gallimard and Grasset, finally it was acquired by a smaller French publisher, Editions Plon, whose stock in trade is historical documents — notably the collected works of General Charles De Gaulle — but also many historical works, most of them, perhaps paradoxically, pro-Islamic.

In rejecting the book, Olivier Nora, head of Editions Grasset, which is like Gallimard one of France’s most prominent publishing houses, noted that “I find that it’s a regressive book, which will be read by people with reptilian brains. Finding ourselves today in a complicated and explosive world situation, it seems to me that such a work is counter-productive.”

The often virulent and violent Ms Fallaci had already reacted quite negatively to the virtual boycott of her work by French publishers and when at last she was able to sell a few selected passages to one of the country’s principal weekly magazines, she ended up threatening a lawsuit, for the publication, Le Point, had dared excise certain passages that its editor felt might be considered provocative by its Muslim or pro-Islamic readers.

The editors of Le Point were indeed even obliged to print a passage in their most recent issue, warning readers that “Oriana Fallaci has reproached us for having made unacceptable cuts in her book La Rage et L’Orgueil. She claims that her moral right has been infringed upon.” Still, Ms Fallaci seems to have given in to the solicitations of the publishers of her book, for it is announced as being a “revised and corrected” version.

As for Bernard-Henri Levy — an editor at Grasset who had recommended that his publishing house turn down the book, but was forced to accept the publication of excerpts in Le Point, where he is also a contributing editor — he wrote in his weekly column, not far away from Ms Fallaci’s text, that her book was an “inacceptable provocation.”

He also noted that her book made him think of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the noted French author of such works as Voyage to the End of the Night, whose often violent diatribes against Jews had resulted in his being accused of anti-Semitism, indeed his incarceration at the end of World War II.’’

Olivier Orban, the head of Plon who decided to forgo the strong intellectual criticism to which Ms Fallaci’s book has been subject around the world, said for his part that if he accepted to publish Anger and Pride, it was for the simple reason that “somebody would have had to publish the book one day, for it’s appeared most everywhere else in the world. So, why not in France?.’’