Storyteller

Anyone who ever wished as a child to meet Willy Wonka or hang out with the BFG will be fascinated to learn in this engrossing, authorized biography of the late Roald Dahl that his own life was far, far more strange than even his fiction. Twenty years after his death, Roald Dahl's bestselling stories continue to inspire and entertain children around the globe. But the man behind the stories remains an enigma. Despite his astonishing life as a Norwegian growing up in Wales, whose father died when he was just five, and as an ace fighter pilot, British intelligence agent, and husband for a while to one of Hollywood's top stars, Dahl nonetheless persistently embroidered the truth about himself, rewrote history, ignored reality, and defended his deep vulnerabilities with outlandish and wilfully provocative remarks. Facts bored him. As his authorized biographer, Donald Sturrock, a wonderful writer and careful researcher, has drawn on Dahl's many previously unexamined files and a vast body of unpublished letters for this nuanced and engrossing narrative of the storyteller's long, adventurous life. From the Hardcover edition.