Opinion Sanitising literature: This is not Roald Dahl

It is a curious conceit of well-meaning adults that makes them believe that children need to inhabit a world, even in their imagination, of padded walls and training wheels. In this patronising conception of childhood, the purpose of storytelling is a stifling, moralising pedagogy meant to create perfect little citizens —  not a fun, transgressive way for children to find their own worlds and voice. For generations, Roald Dahl helped children —  and sometimes even beleaguered adults —  find humour (often dark and macabre) and irreverence. Now, nearly 33 years after his death, Dahl’s publisher and estate are going to sanitise the writer’s works to remove language they deem “offensive”.

To be clear, Dahl’s works for children do not carry expletives. They do call an overweight glutton fat. So, Puffin books will rework the classics. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Augustus Gloop will be “enormous” rather than the f-word and the iconic Oompa Loompas are going from being male to gender neutral. The desire to protect children from adjectives does not end at mere censorship. Entire passages will reportedly be inserted into the works of one of the most original writers. In The Witches, lines that say that witches are bald under their wigs will be followed by the following insertion: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”

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Opinion | Let’s not suck the joy out of Roald Dahl’s books

First, the obvious point: The way to change what people read, and how they think, is not to censor and rewrite books but to write your own. What the well-meaning censors do not understand is that children’s stories are not just about conforming to the fundamentalism of the day — whether regressive or woke. A cursory look at Grimm’s fairytales will give you stories of cannibalism, kidnapping and even suicide. Roald Dahl’s appeal for so many young people has been in his delicious wickedness. And if profit-hungry publishers have a problem with that, they should avoid the self-serving hypocrisy of trying to “fix” literature. They can just give up their copyright and forego the profits.