‘Ruthless ambition and ego’: what it’s like being married to an author

‘Most of the people in this book suffered a lot of trauma in childhood and they were damaged people doing the best they could for the most part’ … Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal circa 1968. Photograph: David Farrell/Getty Images

The trial of Roald Dahl is under way. The late children’s author’s antisemitism has been well chronicled: talking about Jews in the New Statesman magazine in 1983, he remarked that “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason”.

Earlier this month Penguin Random House announced that it would publish Dahl’s books with passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race cut or rewritten to fit modern sensibilities. After a backlash from Salman Rushdie (“absurd censorship”) and free speech groups, the company said 16 books would also be published in their original form.