I have always enjoyed th works of Roald Dahl, but I have for some time been aware of the fact that he held antisemitic beliefs, and his works chock full of bigoted stereotypes.
It's one of the things that comes from a British author born in 1916, and whether or not to read his works is up to the reader.
That being said, I was gobsmacked when I discovered that Dahl originally intended for the character Charlie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be black.
He was convinced to change this by his agent and publisher, who believed that having a black hero would tank sales:
Roald Dahl originally wanted the eponymous hero of his much-loved children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be black, his widow has said.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for Roald Dahl day on Wednesday, Liccy Dahl said: “His first Charlie that he wrote about was a little black boy.”
Asked why it was changed, she replied: “I don’t know. It’s a great pity.”
Her husband’s biographer Donald Sturrock, who was also being interviewed, said the change to a white character was driven by Dahl’s agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers.
“I can tell you that it was his agent who thought it was a bad idea, when the book was first published, to have a black hero,” said Sturrock. “She said people would ask: ‘Why?’”
The revelation about Dahl’s original wish for Charlie may surprise those who accused the author of racism in relation to the book. The allegation stemmed from the fact that the Oompa Loompas in the original version were black pygmies from Africa.
I read the first edition, and never realized that it had changed in the 2nd edition.
You can also read an interesting literary analysis of the original work, which was quite different, here, where Professor Catherine Keyser suggests that the original was intended to be about racism and inequality.
I would not go that far, but it is something to muse on.
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