Enid Blyton was a familiar and immensely loved name long before the era of Harry Potter. She has been a best-selling novelist globally since the 1930s, with more than 600 million copies in print and more than 800 novels that have been translated into 90 languages.
In the 1980s and 1990s, an entire generation of Indian children grew up devouring only Enid Blyton books, especially at a period when there weren't many other children's books available and British authors were more frequently found in libraries than authors from any other country.
Enid Blyton continues to have strong demand and robust trade throughout India. According to Thomas Abraham, general director of Hachette, India, "Blyton is one of the few literary brands whose work remains unshakable." The international distribution rights to Enid Blyton's books are owned by Hachette's UK division.
A Rocky Road
However, the author has faced increasing backlash in her home nation over the years. The Mystery That Never Was by Enid Blyton was rejected by Macmillan in 1960 due to a "faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia," according to English Heritage. Enid Blyton's portrait was going to go on a 50-pence coin in 2019 to mark the 50th anniversary of her passing, but those plans were scrapped by the Royal Mint due to her out-of-date perspectives on race and gender.
Indian followers of Blyton are aware of her flaws. According to novelist and radio commentator Sandip Roy, who defended Blyton in a 2019 op-ed for one of India's national newspapers, The Mint, while also agreeing with her detractors, the author "colonised young Indian brains considerably more easily than the British East India company." "Blyton's greatest literary achievement may not have been in her native England but rather in the enchantment she created over her former colonies, particularly India. She invaded us with crumpets and make-believe.", writes Roy.
The larger-than-life images of England that Blyton painted for Indian readers as a result of their constant consumption of her books were an unexpected result. Blyton even managed to make bland English food sound absolutely delectable, despite the fact that it is notoriously lacklustre.
Adult Blyton readers frequently say it's a very different experience. Adults find it challenging to ignore the numerous unsettling allusions that kids miss. Enid Blyton's works have been heavily edited over the years, with publishers changing derogatory and racial insults.
This is evident in dust-wrapper Blyton editions from the 1960s. Some of these modifications are wholly appropriate. For instance, three dolls with racial slurs as their names are the subject of the book The Three Golliwogs. These names were still there in the dust-wrapper editions of the books that were released in 1968 and 1973. The phrases were scrubbed out of the following paperback editions of these books.
It is clear from examining earlier editions and contrasting them with more recent ones that many of these removals were also based on gender. Despite the fact that Enid Blyton invented the Famous Five hero George, who was viewed as a rebel and who rejects the conventions of gender, there is still a lot of casual sexism.
One criticism that arose over time was that there were not enough brown and black characters in her writings. Like the gipsies in the Famous Five series, who were stereotyped as undesirable and small-time criminals, those who were already there were frequently looked down upon. But for many readers in the 1960s and 1970s, adventure was what really mattered and was what they actively chose to concentrate on. But readers today are inevitably going to be more informed.
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A Modern Approach
Bridging the race gap now is Sufiya Ahmed, a British Indian novelist who has been hired by Hachette to update the Famous Five to include more South Asian readers. The Magic Faraway Tree series features a new narrative by another author, Jacqueline Wilson, which touches on some of the gender biases in the first book. Young readers have responded favourably to the rewritten Famous Five novels, not just in the UK but also in Spain and Portugal.
Despite the fact that Blyton remains well-liked in India, she does not have a cultural monopoly on children's minds. Children's book publishing in India is undergoing a revolution as publishers experiment by translating into other Indian languages and examining new subjects.
Indian authors and publishers have traditionally catered to young children. In India's distant rural regions, the Children's Book Trust, a pioneer in children's publishing with headquarters in Delhi and 60 years of operation, today has hundreds of readers. Since 2004, an Indian nonprofit publisher called Pratham Books has been creating captivating children's books that have been translated into 21 Indian languages, including four tribal languages.
The award-winning Duckbill (now acquired by Penguin Random House) has led to the publication of books featuring Indian characters like Chumki in Chumki and the Elephants, which tells the tale of how a young girl discovers more about the wild animals who are an integral part of her environment.
In her own words, “Hatred is so much easier to win than love - and so much harder to get rid of.” And yet, Blyton has managed to do it herself – she still has the power to overcome her critics, transfix young and old readers alike as well as make people nostalgic. Growing up, Blyton has almost been like a storytelling aunt for so many children. And the fact that people still read her is proof that she has been able to transcend any generational gap – to be so loved and read by all ages.
Written By: Devika Mishra
Edited By: Nidhi Jha
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