PEN America, a community of some 7,500 writers that advocates for freedom of expression, said it was “alarmed” by reports of the changes to Dahl’s books. 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. 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. Any changes were “small and carefully considered,” the company said. The language was reviewed in partnership with Inclusive Minds, a collective which is working to make children’s literature more inclusive and accessible. 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.” Critics complain revisions to suit 21st century sensibilities risks undermining the genius of great artists and preventing readers from confronting the world as it is. 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. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.’’
“Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,’’ Rushdie wrote on Twitter.
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. Fox.” The machines are now simply “murderous, brutal-looking monsters.”īooker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie was among those who reacted angrily to the rewriting of Dahl’s words. The word “black” was removed from the description of the terrible tractors in 1970s “The Fabulous Mr. The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.Īugustus 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.” 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.
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