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ARCHIVED - Spanish publishers refuse to censor Roald Dahl books
Spain will not replace words like “fat” and “ugly” in the British novelist’s classics
Santillana publishing house, which has been releasing Roald Dahl’s books in Spain for four decades, has flatly refused to bow to European pressure to adapt his works to remove some of the ‘offensive’ language."We have always defended children's and youth literature, and published books, without addressing any type of censorship, regardless of the fashions and circumstances of the moment," the company said on Wednesday February 22 in a statement.
The Netflix-owned ‘Roald Dahl Story Company’, which holds exclusive rights to the complete works, has teamed up with ‘Inclusive Minds’ to rewrite all of the novelist’s books with the aim of making them more inclusive and accessible.
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for example, the character Augustus Gloop is now described as “enormous” rather than “fat”. Other adjectives such as “ugly” have been removed from the book.
Even more extreme is the changes made to Witches: When the main character threatens to pull women's hair to find out if they are wearing wigs (this would mean they are witches), in the original, his grandmother replies: “You can't go around pulling the hair of every lady you meet."
This has now been replaced with: “There are many other reasons women might wear wigs and there's certainly nothing wrong with that."
Spain is not alone in its disdain for the suggested changes, which the publisher claims “underestimate the reader."
Acclaimed author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, admitted that Roald Dahl “was no angel”, referring to several anti-Semitic comments he made during his lifetime, but has called the censorship of his works “nonsense.”
Despite the widespread criticism, the changes, which include feminist references and modifications to mentions to weight, mental health, gender and race, have already been fully introduced by Puffin Books in the UK.
"Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed,” Rushdie added.
The author, who died in 1990 at the age of 74, has sold more than 300 million copies that have been translated into 68 languages.
Image: Penguin Random House
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