Roald Dahl: Debate rages over changes to children's author's books

Changes made to books by children's writer Roald Dahl person sparked a fierce statement among writers and readers.

Works including The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory person had references to things similar characters' quality and value removed.

The Roald Dahl Story Company and Puffin Books said they had been updated to beryllium much suitable for modern audiences.

Some approved of the changes, but chap writer Sir Salman Rushdie said they amounted to "absurd censorship".

"Roald Dahl was nary angel but this is absurd censorship," the Midnight's Children and Satanic Verses writer posted connected Twitter. "Puffin Books and the Dahl property should beryllium ashamed."

The Roald Dahl Story Company has said immoderate edits to person travel from its reappraisal process, which has been ongoing since 2020, were "small and cautiously considered".

His Dark Materials writer Philip Pullman told BBC Radio 4 that Dahl's books "should beryllium allowed to slice away" alternatively than changed if they are deemed offensive.

"If Dahl offends us, fto him spell retired of print," said Pullman. "Read each these [other] fantastic authors who are penning today, who don't get arsenic overmuch of a look-in due to the fact that of the monolithic commercialized gravity of radical similar Roald Dahl."

But writer and writer Debjani Chatterjee believes it is "a precise bully happening that the publishers are reviewing his work".

She told the BBC World Service: "I deliberation it's been done rather sensitively. Take the connection 'fat'. They've utilized 'enormous'. If anything, I really deliberation 'enormous' is adjacent funnier."

Children's writer John Dougherty told BBC Radio 5 Live: "There's nary crushed the BFG shouldn't person a achromatic cloak. That conscionable seems absurd.

"And Augustus Gloop, for lawsuit - the full constituent of the quality is that he's hugely overweight due to the fact that helium won't halt eating - he's greedy.

"Now, determination mightiness beryllium an statement that that's violative successful today's world," Dougherty continued. "I deliberation if you're going to determine that, past the lone reply is to enactment the publication retired of print. I don't deliberation you tin say, 'So let's alteration Dahl's words but support the character'."

"Augustus Gloop is simply a greedy character. He'll inactive stay morally greedy and his motivation greed volition beryllium wrong, whether oregon not we person tons of tons and tons of references to however abdominous helium is, which I deliberation tin beryllium upsetting," she told 5 Live.

"We've ever updated children's books. It's a tribute to the mode that these books are becoming myths... that we've adjusted them again."

Laura Hackett, lawman literate exertion of the Sunday Times, said she would proceed to work her archetypal copies of Dahl's books to her children successful each "their full, nasty, colourful glory".

"I deliberation the benignant of the nastiness is what makes Dahl truthful overmuch fun," she told 5 Live. "You emotion it when, successful Matilda, Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to devour that full cocoa cake, oregon you are locked up successful the Chokey [a torture device] - that's what children love.

"And to region each references to unit oregon thing that's not cleanable and bully and friendly, past you region the tone of those stories."

The books person been amended aft being reviewed by sensitivity readers, who cheque for perchance violative content.

The Roald Dahl Story Company worked with publishers Puffin and Inclusive Minds, a corporate moving towards inclusion and accessibility successful children's literature.

A spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company said it wanted "to guarantee that Roald Dahl's fantastic stories and characters proceed to beryllium enjoyed by each children today".

"When publishing caller people runs of books written years ago, it's not antithetic to reappraisal the connection utilized alongside updating different details including a book's screen and leafage layout," it said.

It added: "Our guiding rule passim has been to support the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged tone of the archetypal text."

Dahl, who died aged 74 successful 1990, remains 1 of the UK's astir fashionable children's authors, and Netflix bought the rights to his works successful 2021.

But anti-Semitic comments made passim his beingness led to Dahl being a highly problematic figure.

In 2020, his household apologised, saying they recognised the "lasting and understandable wounded caused by Roald Dahl's anti-Semitic statements".