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Dahl character Augustus Glupsch (in the film adaptation by Tim Burton): Just »enormous«
Photo:
United Archives / ddp images
Critics accuse the British publisher of Roald Dahl's classic children's books of censorship.
He had removed supposedly offensive language from works like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Matilda" to make them more acceptable to a modern audience.
A perusal of the new editions of Dahl's books, now available in bookstores, shows that some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and
race
have been changed.
The changes, made by Puffin Books, a division of Bertelsmann's Penguin Random House publishing group, were first reported by Britain's Daily Telegraph.
Augustus Glupsch, Charlie's gluttonous antagonist in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, originally published in 1964, is no longer "hugely fat," just "huge."
In the new issue of Witches, a sorceress posing as a normal woman could work as "a top scientist or a manager" instead of "handling a supermarket checkout or writing letters for a businessman."
The word "black" was removed from the description of the horrible tractors in 1970's Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The machines are now simply "murderous, brutal-looking monsters."
Apparently the color "black" is not meant to be associated with evil.
Elsewhere, a figure is no longer »white in the face«, but »quite pale«.
Rushdie: "Absurd Censorship"
Other of the more than hundred changes listed by the Telegraph relate to terms such as "crazy", "idiots" or "mad", which apparently should be avoided if possible.
A particularly curious change concerns the examples with which the gifted girl Matilda in the 1988 novel of the same name uses literature to dream away.
The earlier version said: 'She sailed with Joseph Conrad on old-time sailing ships.
She traveled to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling.« Perhaps references to colonialism are to be avoided here.
In any case, according to the Telegraph, the revision reads: 'She visited 19th-century country estates with Jane Austen.
She traveled to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to California with John Steinbeck.«
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie reacted furiously to the paraphrase of Dahl's words.
Rushdie went into hiding for years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 condemning him to death for alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses.
Last year he was attacked and badly injured at an event in upstate New York.
"Roald Dahl was no angel but that's absurd censorship," Rushdie wrote on Twitter.
"Puffin Books and the Dahl heirs should be ashamed."
However, Rushdie subsequently became the target of criticism himself.
The British comedian Abi Roberts accused him of currying favor with the “censoring left” by describing Dahl as “no angel”.
Rushdie then made it clear that while he was defending Dahl's work against a "sycophant seditious police force," Dahl was a "confessed anti-Semite with pronounced racist tendencies."
Make children's literature "more inclusive and accessible".
The changes to Dahl's books are the latest skirmish in a cultural sensitivity debate in which activists seek to protect young people from cultural, ethnic and gender stereotypes in literature and other media.
Critics complain that adapting to 21st-century sensibilities could undermine the genius of great artists and prevent readers from engaging with the world as it is.
The Roald Dahl Story Company, which owns the rights to the books, said it worked with Puffin Publishing to revise the writing to ensure "Dahl's wonderful stories and characters can still be enjoyed by all children today." .
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Author Dahl (1916-1990)
Photo: Tony Evans / Timelapse Library / Getty Images
The language was reviewed in collaboration with Inclusive Minds, an organization dedicated to making children's literature more inclusive and accessible.
All changes are "small and carefully considered," according to the company.
»Not unusual to update the language«
The analysis began back in 2020. That is before Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company in 2021 and embarked on plans to produce a new generation of films based on the author's books.
"When new editions of books written years ago are published, it's not uncommon to revise the language used while updating other details, such as a book's cover and page layout," explained the Roald Dahl Story Company.
»Our guiding principle is always to keep the stories, the characters, the irreverence and the sharp spirit of the original text.«
Dahl died in 1990 at the age of 74.
His books, which have sold more than 300 million copies, have been translated into 68 languages and are read by children all over the world.
Fans of Dahl's books celebrate the sometimes sombre language that appeals to children's fears but is also fun.
But Dahl is also a controversial figure because of anti-Semitic statements he made throughout his life.
The Dahl family issued an apology in 2020, saying they were aware of the injuries so caused.
»Full, evil, colorful splendour«
PEN America, an association of around 7,500 writers that campaigns for freedom of expression, said it was "alarmed" by the reports of the changes to Dahl's books.
"If we begin to correct perceived offenses instead of allowing readers to perceive and respond to books as they were written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and the important lens that literature upon society ," tweeted Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America.
Laura Hackett, a childhood Dahl fan and now deputy head of literature for the London Sunday Times, reacted personally to the news with irritation.
'The editors of Puffin should be ashamed of the botched operation they have undertaken on some of Britain's finest children's books,' she wrote, announcing that she would carefully tuck away her original old copies of Dahl's stories 'so that one day my children can read them in theirs full, evil, colorful splendour."
feb/AP
