Can we revisit the texts of an author to adapt them to contemporary sensibilities without distorting his style and altering his message? Is it a pure and simple censorship, or a necessary modernization for dated writings likely, henceforth, to offend? The debate was reignited in the UK after the Conservative daily The Daily Telegraph revealed, on February 17, that some fifteen works by Roald Dahl (1916-1990), the world-famous author of Charlie and the chocolate factory or BGG (“Le Bon Gros Géant”), with facetious stories with often black humor, had been modified in their 2022 reissue.
“This censorship is absurd”
Hundreds of changes were made to the original texts, relating to the gender or the appearance of the characters. In James and the Giant PeachAunt Sponge is no more “terribly fat and flabby”but “a mean old brute”. Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress in Matildais not anymore “a terrible female”but a “terrible woman”. In Charlie…the Oompa Loompas, the chocolate factory workers, become “little people” and no longer “little men”.
The initiative of the publisher Puffin Books (children’s arm of Penguin Random House) with regard to a British icon still popular with the primary schools of the country caused an outcry. “Roald Dahl was no angel, but this censorship is absurd. Puffin Books and the Dahl Estate [la Roald Dahl Story Company, détentrice de ses droits d’auteur, rachetée en 2021 par Netflix] should be ashamed”regretted the writer Salman Rushdie, a great defender of freedom of expression. “The Prime Minister agrees with the BGG, we should avoid ‘gobblefunking’ the words [le langage charabia des géants dans Le BGG] », reacted the spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Authors should resist attempts to “limit their freedom of expression”even ruled the queen consort, Camilla Parker Bowles, on February 23 – a thinly veiled critique of publisher Puffin?
“Our guiding principle has been to preserve the storylines, characters, irreverence and sharp wit of the original text”, assured a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company, which approved this rewrite. Faced with the excitement, almost unanimous, Puffin Books however partially backtracked on Friday February 24, announcing that it was going to reissue classics by Roald Dahl in their original version: they will be available in bookstores alongside those that have been amended in 2022.
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