Roald Dahl would be ‘appalled’ at woke editing of his books, says Jeffrey Archer

ROALD Dahl would be appalled to hear that his books were being re-written, said bestselling author Jeffrey Archer.

Mr Archer told GB News: “I had the privilege of knowing Roald Dahl. Indeed, three of my short stories were on his Tales of the Unexpected [TV series].

“I worked with him as well and he would be appalled. He’d be absolutely shocked and I can see him saying, ‘go to hell, you publish my books or you do not publish them’.

“He was a curmudgeonly old thing and not easy to deal with.”

In an interview with Andrew Pierce, he said: “In my own case, my publisher approached me some time ago on Cain and Abel and said, ‘we’ve read it through one would you consider any changes?’

“They then admitted that, although 100 million people have read Cain and Abel throughout the world, they’ve never had one complaint.

“And I said, ‘I think we’ll leave it as it is, thank you very much indeed’ and the version written 40 years ago is the version that’s in the shops now.”

He added: “The latest I’ve had on another of my books is would I change ‘West Indian lady’ to ‘Caribbean woman’.

“When I was at Oxford, the captain of the Cambridge team was also captain of the West Indian team for the Olympic Games.

“I don’t remember him saying to me, ‘Jeffrey, I’m captain of the Caribbean team’.”

Mr Archer said the meaning of “woke” has changed: “It changed quite suddenly in the last 10 or 15 years, where it no longer has its original meaning.

“The word woke now means something totally different and that changed in 2017 when a young girl was described as woke and it moved in a totally different direction.

“Now I am of the opinion that the original meaning was good enough for me.

“This modern translation of woke means everyone is wrong except the handful of people who are right.”