One day in August 1983 I was asked by the editor of the New Statesman to interview Roald Dahl.
The Willy Wonka author had, in a book review, launched an accusation against Israel that was so unfounded as to amount to anti-Semitism, and the magazine wanted to see if he really believed the racism he spewed.
The assumption was that he would row back from his extremist stance and the story might make a couple of episodes in the next issue. Hence the decision to entrust the task to me – at 24, the youngest member of the magazine’s staff.
And then at 10.30 one morning, feeling distinctly nervous, I picked up the phone to call the man who had been described as ‘the most popular author of children’s books since Enid Blyton’.
My call was first answered by someone else, and after I had introduced myself, I heard them say to Dahl: ‘There’s a reporter named Mike Coren from the New Statesman for you.’
Roald Dahl wrote a review of a book called God Cried, an account of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, for The Literary Review magazine that was considered anti-Semitic
Author, columnist and pastor Michael Coren interviewed Roald Dahl for The New Statesman in August 1983
I heard Dahl say, ‘Mike Cohen? What?!’ Then he was corrected.
I thought I could hear something in his voice that disturbed me. No, I told myself, you are ridiculous. As I was to discover over the next 15 to 20 minutes, I certainly wasn’t.
Far from retracting his remarks, the author of blockbusters such as James And The Giant Peach and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory doubled down, giving me quotes so stirring that – 40 years on – they will feature in a new play to be performed at London’s Royal Court Theater in the autumn.
In the play, called Giant, Dahl and his family meet with his Jewish publisher to navigate the fallout from his scathing review in the Literary Review.
Of course, when I called him that day, I had no idea that our exchange would still be talked about decades later.
If I had expected him to apologize for some of what he had written, or at least qualify the harshness and inaccurate generalizations, I was soon to be disappointed. The opposite happened.
In his review of a book called God Cried, an account of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, for The Literary Review magazine, Dahl wrote of ‘a race of people’ who had ‘changed so quickly from victims to barbaric murderers’.
In his review, Dahl said the US was ‘so completely dominated by the big Jewish financial institutions’ that ‘they dare not defy’ Israel (Stock Image)
He also wrote that the United States was ‘so completely dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions’ that ‘they dare not defy’ Israel.
When I raised the content of these observations with the author, he was polite – not unfriendly – and spoke slowly and deliberately.
But it was as if I had opened the doors to some dark, deep hatred that had been waiting for years to be expressed.
“There is a feature of the Jewish character which provokes enmity. Maybe it’s some kind of lack of generosity toward non-Jews,” he said, adding, “I mean, there’s always a reason why ‘anti-anything’ pops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick them for no reason.’
When he spoke of ‘that trait in the Jewish character which provokes enmity’, I was not even sure I had heard him correctly. I stopped him and asked if he had meant what he had said. Could I possibly have heard him wrong?
No, he said, I was right. No regrets, no embarrassment.
Although I was sure that a man of his intelligence and worldliness would have known that ‘Coren’ could be a Jewish name, I told him that three of my grandparents were Jewish.
I have never forgotten his reaction – because there was none.
He paused when he had clearly heard what I had said and then calmly continued his racist rant as if nothing had happened.
He told me that he had fought in World War II and that he and his friends never saw any Jewish soldiers.
I opposed again. I told him that my own grandfather had spent four years on the front lines in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, being promoted often and winning several medals.
I added that hundreds of thousands of Jewish men had been in the British, American, Soviet and other Allied armies and were, if anything, overrepresented in combat roles and heroic deeds.
This time I could hear him mumbling something, either to himself or someone else who was in the room. He answered me like he was halfway through a sentence and all I heard was ‘stick together’.
I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say. Once again he was disarmingly polite. ‘No thanks, I think I’ve made myself very clear. Goodbye.’ And that was that.
When the call ended, I felt strangely numb and confused. Young and inexperienced as I was, I think I may have even trembled. How could a man who wrote with such genius, such empathy for the oppressed, and such concern for the difference between right and wrong, be so vile and arrogant in his racism, and so indifferent and cruel to me?
His friends wondered if Dahl was going through some kind of breakdown or crisis. One of them said to me, ‘Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’ This was nonsense.
Years later, Dahl told another interviewer: ‘I am definitely anti-Israel and I have become anti-Semitic. It’s the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There are no Gentile publishers anywhere, they control the media – funny smart thing to do – that’s why the President of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.’
So much for ‘don’t think so’.
A new play called Giant is to be performed at London’s Royal Court Theater this autumn to explore Dahl’s antisemitism (stock image)
I wrote my article and repeated what Dahl had said. The general reaction surprised me. Although this was a time before social media and online hysteria, there was still quite a bit of outrage over Dahl’s statements. But then there were the others – who didn’t care, who said I shouldn’t have written the article, or who even supported his views.
I decided to call Dahl again to discuss the latest furor, but he was unwilling to speak with me. So I wrote to him and asked if there was anything he wanted to say. I guess I still wanted it gone. He replied with the shortest letter I had ever received. All it said was ‘No’. It was unsigned: perhaps he thought I wanted to sell his autograph.
Of course, in the years that followed, his fame would only grow, and since his death in 1990, his books have been turned into movies year after year.
In 2021, Netflix bought Dahl’s entire catalog for around £370m, and a film called Wonka, the ‘origin story’ of his 1964 book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, released late last year, has taken in £490m at the box office. He seems in all respects ‘indefatigable’.
The man’s works seem to be increasingly popular, which raises the question: can the author and his writing be separated? This is something I wrestled with in 1983 and still wrestle with today.
My wife and I read Dahl’s stories to our four children, and I’m sure they will to theirs.
I would never want Dahl’s books taken off the shelves. But I wish people were more sensitive to those, like me, who are so deeply hurt by someone who hates Jews for being Jews, who was happy to spew lies and racism without fear of consequences.
Michael Coren is an Anglican priest in Canada and the author of 18 books. His latest work is The Rebel Christ.