CBC Arts46%
A new play opens up the conversation about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. Should we keep reading his work? 64%
By Sabina Wex0%
4/1/2026, 8:35:00 PM
Topics: Commotion
Keywords: Michael Coren, Roald Dahl
BS Summary: This article contains 37 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Negativity Bias, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 27% saturation with 256 hits. Analysis detected 2,147 faulty-reasoning hits from 947 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 59.2% and a BS Rank of 64% (7,333 of 20,368 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 64.00% of the article peer group.
A new play about Roald Dahl opened to rave reviews on Broadway.
Giant delves into the author’s antisemitic views, which were exposed by British-Canadian journalist Michael Coren in 1983.
Today on Commotion, Coren tells host Elamin Abdelmahmoud about what it was like seeing Giant in New York, his original interview with Dahl and how we should treat the author’s work moving forward.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity.
For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.
Michael: [Dahl] had reviewed a book called God Cried for the Literary Review.
And he had quite clearly bled over from anti-Zionism criticism of Israel to antisemitism.
It was vividly unpleasant.
And the New Statesman was my first job.
I was very young… I felt overwhelmed, really.
And the editor asked me to interview Roald Dahl and ask why he'd written this piece.
And I think, really, the assumption was to allow him to say, “Oh, yes, I went too far.
I'm so sorry, my emotions got the better of me.”
So I just phoned, and we had a conversation where he was extremely polite and explained why he wrote what he did — and went further and further into antisemitism.
I'm fully aware of the differences between criticizing Israel or Zionism and pure racism, but I can't remember verbatim now, but [he said something like]: “There's always a reason people do what they do.
Even a stinker like Hitler had a reason for what he did.
And there's a characteristic in Jewish people sticking together.
And I was in the Second World War, I never saw any of them do any actual fighting.”
At which point I intervened and said, “Well, my father was Jewish and there's one for you because he was in [RAF] Bomber Command.”
And I started to talk about people, Jewish heroes — this should be redundant, but I spoke about this.
I argued with him.
I was just very shocked when he mentioned Hitler being a stinker, there was a reason for what he did.
When he spoke about Jewish cowardice, it really hit a nerve because having a Jewish father and knowing what he did and knowing my grandfather — for goodness sake, he won so many medals.
And that's when it really was very personal.
And then he said things to me about, well, I'm not fully Jewish, so that's sort of OK.
It was very chilling because I did admire him.
I began the conversation by saying, “I'm a great fan of your work.”
I read his adult writing too.
And at no point really did he raise his voice or show anger or hostility.
And the conversation ended amicably.
And I tried to give him a way out.
I said at one point, I think: “Do you want me to call you back?”
Elamin: You try to give him an opportunity to reset some of the vile stuff he's saying on the record.
Michael: Yes, and it wasn't a gotcha piece in any way.
I really wanted him not to do this, I really wanted him to not be like this because you don't want to think these things about people you admire.
And so with Dahl, it was a huge disappointment — but it was more than that.
As I said earlier, it was a shock that someone as erudite and intelligent could be so bloody awful.
Elamin: I think for a lot of people [the play] might be a reconsideration — or a reintroduction, certainly — to things that they didn't know about Roald Dahl.
You've got four kids of your own, right?
There's something about this idea [that] there are people who are now reading Roald Dahl to their kids, to their grandkids.
What do you think, knowing that he was not only antisemitic but also unrepentantly so — very willing, very comfortably put forward those ugly ideas — what do you think that does with how to engage with his work now?
Michael: I detest cancel culture, and I've said that numerous times and written it numerous times.
We read Roald Dahl to our children.
Elamin: After the interview, you mean?
Michael: Long after.
I wasn't having children in my early 20s; it took a bit of a while to find someone who's willing to spend their life with me.
I'll be absolutely candid with you, I find it almost impossible to listen to Wagner.
Elamin: The Nazi associations are too much for you with Wagner.
Michael: They are, they are.
But with Roald Dahl, I don't know, it never seemed to be an issue, perhaps because I was reading to the children, knowing the pleasure they would get from these books.
But advice to other people: read great books to your children — and that would include Roald Dahl.
The children aren't going to say, “Mummy, Daddy, was he antisemetic?”
When they mature in years to come, if they read about it, good.
And they might think about the books read to them.
The books stand, as themselves, as great works for children.
The movies have been made, Steven Spielberg has often been involved in the making of those movies.
There's a man who is extremely conscious of the Shoah, of the Holocaust.
We're intelligent people.
We can surely separate the beliefs and actions of a person from their creation.
As I say, it can be difficult to do.
I find that with one of the great composers of the world.
But with Roald Dahl, read on.
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