12 March 2023

Time: “Why Rewrites to Roald Dahl’s Books are Stirring Controversy”

A British publisher has come under fire for rewriting new editions of Roald Dahl’s children’s books to remove language that today’s readers deem offensive when it comes to race, gender, weight, and mental health.

Puffin Books, a children’s imprint of Penguin Books, worked with the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC), which is now exclusively owned by Netflix, to review the texts. RDSC hopes that rewriting books by one of the world’s most popular children’s authors, whose books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, would ensure that Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.


Among the critics of the rewrites are Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a fatwa because of the alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. On Feb. 18, Rushie tweeted, Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.

Armani Syed

Rewriting an author’s work after his passing, with no input or approval on his part, is most certainly unacceptable for me – like covering up statues of Venus or Michelangelo’s David because their nudity offends some people’s modesty. From the news reports, the edits seem extensive and rather poorly done, in some cases changing the meaning of the original or erasing historical context. And who in their right mind would be offended by tractors being described as black!?

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”.

Danica Kirka

The real issue here is that publishing houses are trying to thread an awkward middle ground between continuing to profit off famous authors in their catalogue and fending off accusations that they are perpetuating or promoting racist and misogynistic views. Instead of taking a clear stance on the issue, either by discontinuing the publication of certain authors or by respecting the original works, they opted for this absurd half-measure which does more harm than good. A similar rewrite is reportedly being planned for the James Bond novels. The sane solution would be to search for new authors, more in-tune with current cultural norms, and diversify their offerings, but I guess that would be too great of an effort…

Books by Roald Dahl displayed at the Barney’s store in New York
Books by Roald Dahl are displayed at the Barney’s store on East 60th Street in New York on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 AP Photo/Andrew Burton

Some have expressed concerns that such changes to original works might covertly make their way into digital editions. Kindle Books can be automatically updated with new versions, when authors issue corrections or additional content for recent books. Fortunately, this is a setting users can easily disable (in your Amazon account, under Content & Devices ▶️ Preferences ▶️ Automatic Book Updates). Feels like it’s safer to keep this off for the foreseeable future…

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