--- title: Roald Dahl's Matilda Faces Down Trump in New Statue Display description: A statue of Matilda Wormwood facing down Trump has been unveiled to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Roald Dahl's beloved bookworm. canonical: https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-01T15:29:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:14.160Z og:title: Roald Dahl's Matilda Faces Down Trump in New Statue Installation og:description: Trump has replaced Miss Trunchbull as Matilda's top adversary og:url: https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58baa7573da388a6/69893b88656a3f753ebd59d7/matilda-statue-president-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Roald Dahl's Matilda statue og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Roald Dahl's Matilda Faces Down Trump in New Statue Installation twitter:description: Trump has replaced Miss Trunchbull as Matilda's top adversary twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58baa7573da388a6/69893b88656a3f753ebd59d7/matilda-statue-president-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Matilda Statue Faces Down Trump to Celebrate 30th Anniversary of Beloved Roald Dahl Classic > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 1, 2018 3:29 PM UTC  A statue of Roald Dahl's Matilda is unveiled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, alongside one of President Donald Trump, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Matilda the novel. A statue of Roald Dahl's Matilda is unveiled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, alongside one of President Donald Trump, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Matilda the novel. David Parry—PA Wire/AP  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 1, 2018 3:29 PM UTC A statue of [Matilda Wormwood](http://time.com/5366781/matilda-challenge/) facing down [President Donald Trump](http://time.com/5411117/trump-kanye-west-saturday-night-live/) has been unveiled to celebrate the 30th anniversary of [Roald Dahl’s](http://time.com/4487573/roald-dahl-100-years-biography-video/) beloved bookworm making her literary debut. The temporary installation currently stands outside the town library in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire—where Dahl lived for 36 years—and features the young heroine from literature defiantly confronting a blustering Trump while standing on a stack of classic novels including _Moby Dick_ and _Great Expectations_.  A statue of Roald Dahl's Matilda is unveiled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, alongside one of President Donald Trump, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Matilda the novel. David Parry—PA Wire/AP Trump was chosen to replace Miss Trunchbull—the villainous school principal from Dahl’s 1998 book—as Matilda’s top adversary by 42 percent of respondents in a survey of over 2,000 Brits, [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/01/uk/matilda-trump-statue-intl/) reports. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and TV presenter Piers Morgan were the second and third runners-up, respectively. “Matilda demonstrates that it’s possible for anyone, no matter how small and powerless they feel, to defeat the Trunchbulls in their own lives—a message that feels even more relevant today than it did 30 years ago,” said Bernie Hall of the Roald Dahl Story Company, which created the display. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/"},"headline":"Matilda Statue Faces Down Trump to Celebrate 30th Anniversary of Beloved Roald Dahl Classic","datePublished":"2018-10-01T15:29:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:14.160Z","description":"Trump has replaced Miss Trunchbull as Matilda's top adversary","url":"https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","Pop Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58baa7573da388a6/69893b88656a3f753ebd59d7/matilda-statue-president-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58baa7573da388a6/69893b88656a3f753ebd59d7/matilda-statue-president-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Roald Dahl's Matilda statue","caption":"A statue of Roald Dahl's Matilda is unveiled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, alongside one of President Donald Trump, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Matilda the novel.","creditText":"David Parry—PA Wire/AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5411413/matilda-statue-trump/","name":"Matilda Statue Faces Down Trump to Celebrate 30th Anniversary of Beloved Roald Dahl Classic"}}]}] ```