The British press has noted multiple changes to the texts of the great youth author, in a new edition. Pure and simple censorship or modernization necessary for dated writings likely, now, to offend?
by Cécile Ducourieux (London, correspondent)
Can we revisit the texts of an author to adapt them to contemporary sensitivities without distorting his style and altering his message? Is it a pure and simple censorship, or a necessary modernization for dated writings that are now likely to offend? The debate was relaunched to the United Kingdom after the conservative daily The Daily Telegraph revealed, on February 17, that a fifteen works by Roald Dahl (1916-1990), world famous author of Charlie and the chocolate factory or BGG (“The good big giant”), with the stories of the often black humor, had been modified in their reissue of 2022.
“This censorship is absurd”
Hundreds of changes have been brought to the original texts, relating to the gender or appearance of the characters. In James and the big fishing, Tante Eponge is no longer “terribly fat and flabby”, but “an old nasty brute”. Miss Trunchbull, the school director in Matilda, is no longer “a terrible female”, but a “terrible woman”. In Charlie…, the Oompa Lompas, the workers of the chocolate factory, become “little people” and no longer “little men”.
The initiative of publisher Puffin Books (Penguin Random House youth branch) with regard to a British icon still prized by the country’s primary schools aroused an uproar. “Roald Dahl was not an angel, but this censorship is absurd. Puffin Books and the Dahl Estate [La Roald Dahl Story Company, holder of his copyright, bought in 2021 by Netflix] should be ashamed,” The writer Salman Rushdie, great defender of freedom of expression. “The Prime Minister agrees with the BGG, we should avoid” gobblefunker “the words [the charabia language of the giants in the BGG],” reacted the spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The authors must resist attempts to “limit their freedom of expression”, even judged Queen Consort, Camilla Parker Bowles, on February 23 – a barely veiled criticism of the publisher Puffin?
“Our principal principle was to preserve the scenarios, the characters, the irreverence and the sharp spirit of the original text,” assured a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company, who approved this rewriting. Faced with the excitement, almost unanimous, Puffin Books, however, did partly rear machine on Friday, February 24, announcing that he was going to repeat classics of Roald Dahl in their original version: they will be available in bookstores alongside those who have been modified in 2022.
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