Great Writers - Roald Dahl

A fascinating documentary that presents the story of the writer's life, and examines the social and political events that influenced their works. British writer Roald Dahl (1916-1990) wrote novels, short stories and film scripts, but he was best known for his children’s books. He wrote 19 children’s books, the most popular of which were James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), which was made into a movie in 1971. Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970) and The BFG (1982) are more recent children’s books. He also wrote a number of film scripts, including You Only Live Twice (1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), both adapted from Ian Fleming novels.

Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales, and educated at Repton, a boarding school for boys. His harsh treatment while a student there led to him later to write stories about cruelty and revenge. Deciding not to enter a university, he joined the Shell Oil Company in 1933, worked in Tanganyika from 1937 to 1939, enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) at the start of World War II, and served as a fighter pilot and as an air attaché in Washington D.C. During those years he published his RAF adventures in the Saturday Evening Post and wrote his first book, The Gremlins (1943), which became a successful motion picture in 1984.

A collection of short stories, Someone Like You (1953) became a best-seller and was followed by Kiss, Kiss (1960), which firmly established Dahl as a serious writer of fiction. Switch Bitch (1974), another work of adult fiction, continued Dahl’s tradition of morbid, eerie tales for adults.

Dahl wrote two autobiographies, Boy (1984) and Going Solo (1986). He was married to American actress Patricia Neal, whom he helped to recover from catastrophic strokes in 1965.