Roald Dahl's family has released a statement apologising for the author's anti-Semitic comments.
The best-selling writer of classic titles including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach made controversial comments in two interviews in 1983 and 1990, the BBC reports.
The author died on November 23, 1990, aged 74, and his books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Now the author's family together with the Roald Dahl Story Company have published a statement on the author's website.
The statement reads: "The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl's statements.
Dahl's novels have been childhood classics for generations. Photo / Supplied
"Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations."
The family hopes Dahl "can help remind us of the lasting impact of words".
Dahl's comments caused upset for those in the Jewish community. In 2018, a plan to commemorate the author with a special coin was axed over concerns about the author's anti-Semitism.
According to the BBC, the author said in an interview with the New Statesman in 1983 that he believed there was a "trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity", and said in an interview with the Independent months before his death that he was "anti-Semitic".
"I'm certainly anti-Israel and I've become anti-Semitic inasmuch as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism."
Dahl's stories continue to have enduring success, and his novels have had multiple recent movie adaptations.
The 2020 film adaptation of Dahl's book The Witches caused controversy upon its release, and Warner Bros apologised for offending people living with disabilities.
Anne Hathaway's character is shown with hands that are similar to the limb abnormality ectrodactyly, otherwise known as "split hand".
In response to the backlash, a Warner Bros spokesperson told Deadline it had been "deeply saddened to learn that our depiction of the fictional characters in The Witches could upset people with disabilities" and that it "regretted any offence caused".
"In adapting the original story, we worked with designers and artists to come up with a new interpretation of the cat-like claws that are described in the book," said the spokesperson.
"It was never the intention for viewers to feel that the fantastical, non-human creatures were meant to represent them."
