British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday criticised the 'airbrushing' of literature after a newspaper report showed books by children's author Roald Dahl had been edited to remove or alter references to gender, race and physical appearance.
"It's important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed."Dahl died aged 74 in 1990. In 2020 his family apologised for anti-Semitic remarks he had made, saying the comments were “incomprehensible to us”.
"Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text," said a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company. Across several different books, the edits the newspaper reported addressed dated gender stereotypes, swapping a reference to women working as typists for "working as a top scientist", and changed language relating to mental health - in one instance substituting "furious" for "crazy".
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