Puffin Books faces claims “absurd censorship” after the UK-based publisher chose to remove certain phrases from reissues of classic children’s author Roald Dahl’s books, in order to make the works more palatable to modern audiences.
In new editions of Dahl’s books, passages involving topics such as a character’s weight, appearance, sanity and gender have been changed – after Puffin said he conducted a “review” from the language of beloved books, including ‘Matilda’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.
“Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship”, author Salman Rushdie wrote on Twitter. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
Rushdie lived in hiding for many years after being threatened with death following the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses”. He was stabbed and seriously injured at a literary event in New York last year.
An edited passage is in Roald Dahl’s “The Witches” and describes a female character as being bald under a wig. A paragraph now ends with an extra line: “There are many other reasons why women may wear wigs and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Dahl’s Oompa Loompa characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are also renamed from “little men” gender neutral “Little People”, while other references – such as those to a character’s weight – have also been changed. In the same book, Augustus Gloop is no longer called “fat” but “enormous.”
“When publishing new printings of books written years ago, it’s not uncommon to revisit the language used while updating other details, including a book’s cover and layout. .” said a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company. “Any changes made have been minimal and carefully considered.”
British author Dahl died in 1990 aged 74. His children’s books have sold over 300 million copies worldwide, have been translated into 68 languages and are still hugely popular. Several of his works have also been adapted into feature films.
However, Dahl was also the source of controversy for anti-Semitic comments made throughout his life, for which his estate apologized in 2020 saying it recognized the “understandable hurt” they had caused.
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