Merseyside-based writers are divided after it was announced some of Roald Dahl’s work would be rewritten by a “sensitivity” writer.
Publisher Puffin revealed several books from the British author would be edited to remove or rewrite language deemed offensive to today’s society. Content including references to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race have been amended - in a move which has evoked arguments from both sides of the fence.
James Baker, a writer and director connected with the Everyman Theatre, said “we need history to teach us how to change”.
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The former LIPA teacher told the ECHO: “History is valuable if we have the opportunity to reflect upon it - to do so we need the evidence; we need books, pictures and videos to capture an authentic snapshot of history. This gives us a counterpoint, argument or departure point - else how do we know where we are now, or what our destination is?
“The idea that we remove context to validate cultural development removes also the potential for future progression. If we rewrite it, we can easily irradiate the learning. I understand how tropes, stereotypes and brazen language can be deemed offensive, but everything has context. Maybe we need to spend more time teaching the value of critical thinking and debate, rather than appeasing those concerns by sanitising the ugly. There is a place for the good, the bad, and the ugly."
The 40-year-old English graduate’s comments come after editorial changes see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Augustus Gloop now “enormous” rather than “fat,” Mrs Twit no longer “ugly” just “beastly” and Oompa Loompas becoming gender neutral.
The Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the books, said it had worked with Puffin to review and revise the texts. The publishing company is set to release 17 titles later this year as part of the Roald Dahl Classic Collection “to keep the author’s classic text in print”. The books will include archive material relevant to each of the stories created by the children’s author.
The classic collection will sit alongside the newly-released Dahl books for young readers, which have been rewritten to "cater for the sensitivities of modern audiences". Wirral author and Tiktok star Olivia Bratherton-Wilson said the editorial changes were “inevitable”.
The teenager from Moreton, who has written and released two books whilst juggling the pressures of A-Levels, told the ECHO: “Considering his books have already been edited to remove some offensive comments, it's inevitable there will be some unproblematic undertones in his novels.
"The excuse that people (and their work) are simply 'products of their time' isn't particularly progressive, and considering his books are catered towards children, wouldn't it be better to educate them with more diverse novels, written by authors that aren't 'products’ of their time?
“I grew up reading his novels and was specifically in awe at his capacity for escapism and witty drawings by Quentin Blake, and I'd find it difficult to leave characters like Matilda behind. We only need to look at adaptations of his novels such as Matilda The Musical to see that diversifying his novels is possible.
"Art shouldn't just be a product of its time, new opinions are arising all the time, why shouldn't this be reflected in art, more specifically, the recreation and rewriting of art?”
The Roald Dahl Story Company said it wasn't unusual to review the language used during a new print run and any changes made were small and carefully considered.
Two lines which are sung by the Centipede in previous editions of James and the Giant Peach depicting Aunt Sponge as "terrifically fat and tremendously flabby" have been removed. Gender-neutral terms have been added in places with The Cloud-Men in the same book now becoming Cloud-People and Matilda's Miss Trunchbull changing from a "most formidable female" to now a "most formidable woman".
Some passages - not written by Dahl - have also been added. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”
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