UK fury as Roald Dahl books rewritten, but French publishers say ‘non’ to edits

“Change a text today without (the author’s) consent? No,” Hedwige Pasquet, director of Gallimard Jeunesse, said in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper.

A report by Britain’s The Daily Telegraph last week said that books by Dahl, such as 1988 story “Matilda”, “The BFG” (1982) and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (1964) had been edited to remove or alter references to gender, race and physical appearance.

The description of Matilda protagonist Augustus Gloop was changed from “enormously fat” in the 2001 edition to “enormous” in the 2022 version, the paper cited as an example.

Matilda's role model's changed

The role models of Matilda, a book-loving child prodigy, were also changed to include a female author.

The Roald Dahl Story Company, which manages the copyrights and trademarks of Dahl, said it was not unusual to review language when reprinting books, and described any changes as “small and carefully considered”.

Contextualising and updating some published works could necessitate the revision of all texts, and in that case, then “why not change fairytales?” Pasquet asked.

She said that Dahl, who died in 1990, would not have accepted such changes as “it causes us to lose the flavour of his writing” and that his style was ironic and witty.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke out against the changes, saying “it’s important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed.”

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.

Absurd censorship

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

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, colorful glory.”

(FRANCE 24, AP Reuters)