News about Daniel Handler

Children need to read about 'wretched' things and not be protected from 'offensive' words, best-selling author Daniel Handler (inset top) has said. The Lemony Snicket (right, Jim Carrey as Count Olaf in the 2004 film A Series of Unfortunate Events) writer has hit out at publishers rewriting Roald Dahl's (inset bottom) books to make them more 'inclusive' by removing words such as 'fat'. The 54-year-old said he understands the 'urge' to remove offensive language but condemned the 'tinkering' of the BFG and Witches (left) author's work. The A Series of Unfortunate Events writer said Dahl's work was 'offensive' - and it should be kept this way. Dahl, who sold 300 million copies of his work, wrote children's classics including James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Twits.

Two decades after the Jim Carrey and Catherine O'Hara -led film was released, writer Daniel Handler is now accusing movie executives of chewing him up and spitting him out, denying him his fee, and laying bare his accounts of bitter behind-the-scenes tensions on the big-screen hit. In his upcoming memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else?, the author talks for the first time about being fired and rehired, while accusing producers of cheating him out of a fee as Paramount Pictures worked so desperately to adapt the bestselling books for the big screen.