Who was Roald Dahl?

More than a children’s author…

Roald Dahl was a British author remembered best for his children’s novels, though he also wrote poetry, short stories, screenplays, essays, and adult literature. Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales on September 13, 1916.  His parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl, were Norwegian immigrants. He had three sisters, though he lost one of his sisters to appendicitis when he was three years old. Only weeks after this loss, Dahl’s father died of pneumonia. His mother decided to remain in Wales so Dahl and his siblings could be educated in English schools. Dahl attended boarding school first at St. Peter’s, then at Repton School in Derbyshire. It was here that Dahl lived out his formative years. Many of his memories at Repton later influenced his stories. Famously, the boys as Repton were sent trial chocolate bars to test for Cadbury chocolate company, which partially inspired one of his best known novels, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He graduated from Repton in 1932 and avoided university, instead joining an expedition to Canada. He then moved to East Africa, where he worked briefly for an oil company.

At the outbreak of WWII, Dahl became a fighter pilot for the Royal Air Force (RAF) at age 23. On September 19, 1940, his plane crash landed in Libya, seriously injuring and temporarily blinding him. This event later inspired his first published work, “A Piece of Cake” (published in The Saturday Evening Post).  During the war, Dahl’s squadron served in Greece and Syria. In 1942, Dahl became an air attaché in Washington, DC, where he represented the British airforce and was a spy for the British government. In DC, Dahl met the English novelist C.S. Forester (known for his stories about warfare), who encouraged Dahl to write about his experiences with the RAF. His first story collection, Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying was published in 1946 following the war. Though it was received well by critics, it did not sell among readers.