Salman Rushdie, Brian Cox slam Roald Dahl publisher for inclusive book edits / Roald Dahl rewrites: edited language in books criticised as ‘absurd censorship’

 

Roald Dahl rewrites: edited language in books criticised as ‘absurd censorship’

 

Author Salman Rushdie among those angry after some passages relating to weight, gender, mental health and race were rewritten

 

Associated Press

Mon 20 Feb 2023 04.05 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/20/roald-dahl-books-rewrites-criticism-language-altered

 

Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colourful language from works such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda to make them more acceptable to modern readers.

 

A review of new editions of Dahl’s books now available in bookstores shows that some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered. The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

 

Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which originally was published in 1964, is no longer “enormously fat,” just “enormous”. In the new edition of Witches, a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be working as a “top scientist or running a business” instead of as a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman”.

 

The word “black” was removed from the description of the terrible tractors in 1970s The Fabulous Mr Fox. The machines are now simply “murderous, brutal-looking monsters”.

 

Booker prize-winning author Salman Rushdie was among those who reacted angrily to the rewriting of Dahl’s words. Rushdie lived in hiding for years after Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a fatwa calling for his death because of the alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. He was attacked and seriously injured last year at an event in New York state.

 

“Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,’’ Rushdie wrote on Twitter. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.’’

 

 

The changes to Dahl’s books mark the latest skirmish in a debate over cultural sensitivity as campaigners seek to protect young people from cultural, ethnic and gender stereotypes in literature and other media. Critics complain revisions to suit 21st century sensibilities risk undermining the genius of great artists and preventing readers from confronting the world as it is.

 

The Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the books, said it worked with Puffin to review the texts because it wanted to ensure that “Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today”.

 

The language was reviewed in partnership with Inclusive Minds, a collective working to make children’s literature more inclusive and accessible. Any changes were “small and carefully considered”, the company said.

 

It said the analysis started in 2020, before Netflix bought the Roald Dahl Story Company and embarked on plans to produce a new generation of films based on the author’s books.

 

“When publishing new print runs of books written years ago, it’s not unusual to review the language used alongside updating other details, including a book’s cover and page layout,’’ the company said. “Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text.”

 

Puffin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

Dahl died in 1990 at the age of 74. His books, which have sold more than 300m copies, have been translated into 68 languages and continue to be read by children around the world.

 

But he is also a controversial figure because of antisemitic comments made throughout his life.

 

The Dahl family apologised in 2020, saying it recognised the “lasting and understandable hurt caused by Roald Dahl’s antisemitic statements”.

 

Regardless of his personal failings, fans of Dahl’s books celebrate his use of sometimes dark language that taps into the fears of children, as well as their sense of fun.

 

PEN America, a community of 7,500 writers that advocates for freedom of expression, said it was “alarmed” by reports of the changes to Dahl’s books.

 

“If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society,” tweeted Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America.

 

Laura Hackett, a childhood Dahl fan who is now deputy literary editor of London’s Sunday Times newspaper, had a more personal reaction to the news.

 

“The editors at Puffin should be ashamed of the botched surgery they’ve carried out on some of the finest children’s literature in Britain,” she wrote. “As for me, I’ll be carefully stowing away my old, original copies of Dahl’s stories, so that one day my children can enjoy them in their full, nasty, colourful glory.”

Salman Rushdie, Brian Cox slam Roald Dahl publisher for inclusive book edits

by Emily Jacobs, Weekend News Editor

 February 20, 2023 02:58 AM

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/puffin-roald-dahl-childrens-books-inclusive-edits-condemned-salman-rushdie

 

The decision to revise some of Roald Dahl's classic children's books to make them more inclusive was met with widespread condemnation over the weekend.

 

Dahl's publisher, Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, and the Roald Dahl Story Co., which manages the works’ copyright and trademarks, told Britain's Telegraph for a report published Friday that the two collaborated with Inclusive Minds, a collective that works on making children's literature more inclusive, to make the hundreds of changes. Critics of Dahl, who remained a vocal anti-Semite until his death in 1990, have argued that some of his works are bigoted.

 

Renowned author Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses led Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa in 1989 calling on all Muslims to kill him, denounced the changes to Dahl's works.

 

"Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship," Rushdie tweeted Saturday. "Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed."

 

Actor Brian Cox, who currently stars in HBO's Succession and has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, decried the revisions by likening them to McCarthyism.

 

"I really do believe [these books are] of their time and they should be left alone," he told the Times of London in a radio interview. "Roald Dahl was a great satirist, apart from anything else. It's disgraceful."

 

"It's this kind of form of McCarthyism, this woke culture, which is absolutely wanting to reinterpret everything and redesign and say, 'Oh, that didn't exist.'" he continued. "Well. it did exist. We have to acknowledge our history."

 

Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America, a nonprofit that defends free expression in literature and other art, said her organization was "alarmed" by news of the changes.

 

"If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society," Nossel wrote on Twitter.

 

Laura Hackett, a lifelong Dahl fan who serves as deputy literary editor for London's Sunday Times newspaper, vowed to collect old, unaltered copies of Dahl's works for her children while condemning the revisions.

 

"The editors at Puffin should be ashamed of the botched surgery they’ve carried out on some of the finest children’s literature in Britain," Hackett wrote. "As for me, I’ll be carefully stowing away my old, original copies of Dahl’s stories, so that one day my children can enjoy them in their full, nasty, colorful glory."