Roald Dahl would be 'APPALLED' at his books being rewritten | Jeffrey Archer

Good luck to the Queen I say. I think it was no more than common sense was it? I had the privilege of knowing Roald Dahl. Indeed, three of my short stories were on his tales of the unexpected. So I worked with him as well and he would be appalled. He'd be absolutely shocked. He'd say, I can see here him saying go to hell. You published my books or you can not publish them.

You can see from that picture. He was a comudingly old thing and not easy to deal with. Geoffrey, on what basis can a publishing house change a book that's been in circulation? I think I checked. This book was written Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, writing 1964. Can they, well, how are they allowed to change the words that he used? I presume they approached the family in my own case. My publishers approached me some time ago on Cane and Able and said we've read it through and would you consider any changes? They then admitted that although a hundred million people had read Cane and Able throughout the world, they'd never had one complaint. And I said, I think we'll leave it as it is.

Thank you very much indeed. And indeed the version written 40 years ago is the version that's in the shops now. What was the area they were contemplating that you might agree to have changed? Was it gender-wise? Well, it's often a thing like Girl for Woman for Lady. It's something that now, I mean the latest I've had on another of my books, is would I change West Indian Lady to Caribbean Woman? And I think on balance as it's set in 2002, I'll sit with West Indian Lady, but I'm being asked to change it to Caribbean Woman. And you're going to resist? Well, when I was up at Oxford, Andrew, the captain of the Cambridge team was 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. What book was that in, Jeffrey, where they wanted you to change it to Caribbean Woman? The very latest one that will be coming out in a few weeks time.

They're just editing it now and we've rightly decided we'll leave it as it is. Thank you very much. I mean, the bigger subject, you've got a problem, of course. There are some. People don't know where the word woke came from, Andrew. Woke came first in 1928 when six black men were accused of killing a white policeman and they were innocent. And songs came out and poems came out that were described as woke and were in support of black people quite rightly, who had been ill treated.

So that's where it came from. It changed suddenly. I mean, it's moved in the way words have moved, subjects have moved. But it changed quite suddenly in the last 10 or 15 years where it was no longer has its original meaning. The word now, 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 in 1928 was good enough for me.

This modern translation of woke where everyone is wrong except the handful of people who are right. All right, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, thanks for joining me. I'm 82, boring, out of touch. Don't know what I'm talking about. So it's possible I'm 100% wrong.

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