Roald Dahl
born Sept. 13, 1916, Llandaff,
Wales
died Nov. 23, 1990, Oxford, Eng.
British writer, a popular author of
ingenious, irreverent children’s books and
of adult horror stories.
Following
his graduation from Repton, a renowned
British public school, in 1932, Dahl avoided
a university education and joined an
expedition to Newfoundland. He worked from
1937 to 1939 in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika
(now in Tanzania), but he enlisted in the
Royal Air Force (RAF) when World War II
broke out. Flying as a fighter pilot, he was
seriously injured in a crash landing in
Libya. He served with his squadron in Greece
and then in Syria before doing a stint
(1942–43) as assistant air attaché in
Washington, D.C. There the novelist C.S.
Forester encouraged him to write about his
most exciting RAF adventures, which were
published by the Saturday Evening Post.
Dahl’s first book,
The Gremlins (1943), was written for Walt
Disney but was largely unsuccessful.
However, he achieved best-seller status with
Someone like You (1953; rev. ed. 1961), a
collection of stories for adults, which was
followed by Kiss, Kiss (1959). His
children’s book James and the Giant Peach
(1961; film 1996), written for his own
children, was a popular success, as was
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964),
which was made into the films Willy Wonka
and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory (2005). His other
works for young readers include Fantastic
Mr. Fox (1970; film 2009), The Enormous
Crocodile (1978), and Matilda (1988; film
1996). Dahl also wrote several scripts for
movies, among them You Only Live Twice
(1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
