Roald Dahl was born in Wales, the child of Norwegian parents. During World War 2, he served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, suffering serious injuries when his aircraft crashed in the Libyan desert in 1942.After the war, Dahl began to write short stories for magazines and in 1948 published his first novel, Sometime Never, about global nuclear war and its aftermath. This was unsuccessful, but 2 collections of short stories, Someone Like You (1953) and Kiss, Kiss (1960), established him as a talented writer of bizarre and grotesque fiction. In 1953, he married the actress Patricia Neal, who suffered a series of strokes in 1965. She later claimed that her recovery owed much to Dahl's efforts.
It was as a writer of children's books that Dahl achieved his greatest fame. He wrote 19 of these, including James and the Giant Peach (1961), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Fantastic Mr Fox (1970) and Danny the Champion of the World (1975). Almost as successful were The Twits (1980), George's Marvellous Medicine (1980) and The BFG (1982).
Dahl wrote the screenplay to his most famous work, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Other screenplays included You Only Live Twice (1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), both adapted from Ian Fleming novels. Films were also made of Danny the Champion of the World (1975), The Witches (1983) and Matilda (1988), his last full-length work.
Some critics have commented adversely on the preoccupation with greed, revenge and the dark side of human nature that runs through most of Dahl's work. However, many believe it may actually be the key to his success with young readers. "I never get any protests from children," he claimed. "All you get is giggles of mirth and squirms of delight. I know what young children like."
