I spent my childhood reading stories by authors who had unpleasant things to say about my race – but this doesn’t mean I have to throw away every precious moment I spent with their characters. From my earliest days, I remember my mother enchanting me with stories of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree . Through her words, we climbed the towering tree together, meeting characters like Moon-Face, The Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot among the branches.
I remember being introduced by my father to the mysterious beauty of C.S. Lewis’ hidden forests of Narnia and giggling with my friends under the covers at the ridiculousness of Farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean in Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox .
The stories are timeless, even if the authors are of another time. Through these stories, I was transported to other worlds, intoxicated by the sense of escapism they provided. I was transformed into an adventurer, pirate, snake-charmer or astronaut at the command of a page turn, giving me a sense that anything was possible.
My love for literature saw me take up English at university, determined to immerse myself even more in diverse, creative worlds. But I was in for a shock. My tertiary studies cast a different lens on these worlds, applying critical and post-colonial perspectives to reveal the racism, sexism and bigotry of many of the authors I’d grown up with.
I was horrified by antisemitic comments made by Roald Dahl. Many theorists argued the stories of C.S.
Lewis were, in fact,.
