罗尔德·达尔传记

诗人的传记

他的父母来自挪威，但他于1916年出生在威尔士。一家人过去常常在挪威的一个小岛上度过暑假，游泳、钓鱼和乘船。当罗尔德四岁时，他的父亲去世了，所以他的母亲不得不独自为她和她的六个孩子组织这次旅行。在学校，他总是想家。在圣彼得预备学校，所有回家的信件都由校长控制，后来在雷普顿公立学校，他不得不穿一件可怕的校服(带背带、束腰上衣、帽子和许多纽扣，全是黑色的)。年龄较小的男孩经常受到校长的惩罚，年龄较大的男孩则被称为级长。罗尔德在书中着重描写了学校里的斗殴事件。你可能会因为一些小错误而被打，比如把足球袜落在地板上，在下午茶的时候把级长的烤面包烤糊了，或者在六点钟忘了换便鞋。然而，最可怕的毒打是校长本人打的，他也是一个牧师。他太残忍了，每次打完他都要停下来抽烟斗，谈论罪恶和恶行，而男孩不得不一直跪着。 After ten beats, the victim was told to wash away the blood first, before putting on the trousers. By the way, this headmaster became later the Archbishop of Canterbury. Roald Dahl kept telling himself, that if this was one of God's chosen men, there was something going very wrong about the whole business. After school, Roald Dahl didn't go to university, but applied for a job at the Shell company, because he was sure they would send him abroad. He was sent to East Africa, where he got the adventure he wanted: great heat, crocodiles, snakes and safaries. He lived in the jungle, learned to speak Swahili and suffered from malaria. When the second World War broke out, he went to Nairobi to join the Royal Air Force. He was a fighter pilot and shot down German planes and got shot down himself. After 6 months in hospital he flew again. In 1942, he went to Washington as Assistant Air Attaché. There, he started writing short stories. In 1943, he published his first children's book "The Gremlins " with Walt Disney and in 1945 his first book of short stories appeared in the US. His marriage with the actress Patricia Neal was unhappy. None of their kids survived, his wife suffered a stroke. When she regained consciousness, she could hardly read, count and talk. But Roald managed to nurse her back to health, so that she could act again. Nevertheless, he got divorced in 1983 and married Felicity Crosland. He recieved several awards, such as the Edgar Allan Poe Award. His collections of short stories have been translated into many languages and have been best-sellers all over the world. Among them are "Someone Like You ", "Sweet Mystery Of Life ", "Kiss Kiss " and "Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories ". He wrote TV series like "Tales of the Unexpected " and the novel "My Uncle Oswald ". His books are mostly fantasy, and full of imagination. They are always a little cruel, but never without humour - a thrilling mixture of the grotesque and comic. A frequent motif is, that people are not, what they appear to be. Mary Maloney in "Lamb to the Slaughter ", for example, is not a friendly widow, but a clever murderess. In his stories, the background is perfectly worked out: details are very close to reality. Roald Dahl didn't only write books for grown-ups, but also for children, such as "James and the Giant Peach ", "Fantastic Mr. Fox " and "The Gremlins ". About his children's stories he said once: "I make my points by exaggerating wildly. That's the only way to get through to children." Roald Dahl is perhaps the most popular and best-selling children's book author. However, these stories are so sarcastic and humorous, that also adults appreciate reading them. Roald Dahl died in November 1990. The Times called him "one of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation"