Biography
Roald Dahl was born on 13 September 1916 in Llandaff, Cardiff, to Norwegian parents. His father Harald and a sister died when he was three years old, and the losses of his early childhood — combined with difficult experiences at the English boarding schools he attended — left lasting marks on his imagination.
Dahl was educated at Llandaff Cathedral School and Repton School in Derbyshire, where he was a chocolate tester for Cadbury's — the experience that, decades later, would inspire the most famous chocolate factory in literature. He was a poor student academically but a keen observer of people.
After leaving school he worked for Shell Oil in Africa. When World War Two broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and trained as a fighter pilot in Kenya. He was seriously injured when his Gloster Gladiator crashed in the Libyan desert in 1940 — his face was crushed against the cockpit and he was temporarily blinded. He recovered and flew again, becoming an ace pilot who shot down at least five enemy aircraft over Greece.
Dahl began writing after the war, initially for adult audiences. His short stories — collected in Someone Like You (1953) and Kiss Kiss (1960) — are dark, witty tales of unexpected reversals, many with twist endings that became his trademark. He married the American actress Patricia Neal in 1953 and they had five children.
His first children's book, James and the Giant Peach, appeared in 1961. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory followed in 1964 and established Dahl as the foremost children's author of his generation. He wrote children's books in a small brick garden hut in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire — a space preserved and visited by pilgrims to this day.
Over three decades he produced fourteen major children's novels and many short stories, all characterised by their dark comic energy, their sympathy with children against horrible adults, their extraordinary language and their deep moral seriousness beneath the anarchic surface. His books have sold over 250 million copies worldwide and continue to be among the most read in UK primary schools.
Dahl died on 23 November 1990 in Oxford at the age of 74.