Roald Dahl, Complete and Uncensored

Political correctness has wreaked havoc on some of Roald Dahl's (1916-1990) stories and novels. However, Alfaguara takes on the challenge of publishing a "definitive" edition of the prolific British storyteller's 'Complete Tales' in a single monumental volume of nearly a thousand pages, with eight stories previously unpublished in Spanish and without the 'woke' corrections of the latest British editions.

In 2023, the British publisher Puffin Books revised some of Dahl's children's titles. To "avoid offending" and considering some expressions "offensive", changes were introduced that sparked a strong debate, though they did not affect his adult stories. Alfaguara, which holds the rights for the Hispanic market, stated then that it would keep its editions "as they are". Santillana, the parent company that has been publishing Dahl's books for four decades, spoke of "censorship" and decided not to alter its Spanish publications after negotiating with the Roald Dahl Society Company.

This is the "most complete" edition to date of Dahl's stories, arranged chronologically, according to his biographer Jeremy Treglown and his heirs. Of the 59 stories in the Spanish edition, the eight unpublished ones are 'Only This', 'They Shall Not Grow Old', 'Yesterday Was Beautiful', 'Someone Like You', 'Death of an Old, Old Man', 'Madame Rosette', 'Oh Sweet Mystery of Life', and 'The Bookseller'.

The last seven stories in the volume, undated and excluded for years from Dahl's anthologies at his wife's initiative, are included at the end. From Dahl's entire story production, only 'In the Ruins', 'Smoked Cheese', and 'The Sword' are excluded from all anthologies in any language by express wish of the heirs.

The British editions of titles such as 'The Witches' or 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' had their references to the gender and appearance of characters modified. In the revised edition of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', Augustus Gloop is not referred to as "enormously fat", but simply "enormous". His witches become a "top scientist" or "business director". The words 'crazy' and 'deranged' were also removed.

"Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and Dahl's estate should be ashamed," writer Salman Rushdie denounced at the time.

Like in Spain, French and Dutch publishers maintain the original versions because their stories "lose their power" if the language is changed and it is a matter that "only concerns Great Britain".

The volume is prefaced by Miqui Otero and writer Elvira Lindo, who highlights how Dahl's "subversive and witty" style captivated filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Tim Burton, or Steven Spielberg. The author of 'Manolito Gafotas' emphasizes the Welsh writer's obsession with doing justice to the weak and the helpless in his plots. "He is not cruel but shows cruelty and does not avoid macabre or morbid situations," she assures of an author who has sold more than three hundred million books.

Born in 1916 in the small village of Llandaff, into a well-off family of Norwegian immigrants, Dahl was a screenwriter, combat pilot, spy, chocolate historian, and medical inventor. He lost his father and a sister in childhood, and his mother sent him to strict boarding schools where he was punished for his pranks, which would mark his life and literature.

He wrote 16 books for children, several novels and stories for adults, autobiographical tales, theatre, and scripts for film and television. 'The Gremlins', his first work, appeared in 1943. It was followed by 'James and the Giant Peach' (1961) and the legendary 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' (1964), 'The BFG' (1982), and 'Matilda' (1988).

At 18, he went to Tanzania to work in an oil company. He left a cushy life to enlist in 1939 in the Royal Air Force as a war pilot in Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean. The lanky Dahl, who was nearly two meters tall, fractured his skull and nose, and went blind for eight weeks after crashing in a failed emergency landing. The adventure led to his first story and was the seed for 'Going Solo'.

Transferred to Washington, he alternated military duties with diplomatic and intelligence tasks. He spied for MI6, the British intelligence service. Not surprisingly, he would write the screenplay for 'You Only Live Twice' (1967), a James Bond film, and adapted another Fleming novel into the classic children's musical 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' (1968).

A notorious womanizer, Dahl married actress Patricia Neal in 1953. They had five children and lived together for 30 years in Gipsy House, the country home where Dahl continued to write, entrenched in a shed. Olivia, their firstborn, died at seven from a measles-related brain complication. The devastated couple was already enduring a tragedy with their third child, Theo, who was hit by a car in his stroller at just four months old. His brain was damaged, he lost his sight, and developed hydrocephalus - an accumulation of fluid in the cranial cavity - which required constant drainage. Determined to alleviate his son's hardships, Dahl invented, with an engineer and a neurosurgeon, the Wade-Dahl-Till (WDT) valve, which helped thousands of children worldwide.