Roald Dahl was a successful writer of children's books. He sold millions of books all over the world. He's so famous that there is even a Roald Dahl Museum you can visit. Many of his books have been made into films.
Roald was born in 1916 in Wales. His father was rich but he died when Roald was young, Roald's mother brought him up. He left school early. Roald went to Africa to look for his fortune(财富), and he spent two years working for an oil company. In 1939, Roald joined the Air Force as a pilot, but he had a bad accident in the desert. This made him limp(跛脚的) for the rest of his life. After this, Roald went to America where he wrote a story about his adventures as a pilot. It was good and was published in a magazine.
Roald met and married an American film star named Patricia Neal, They bought a house in England and had five children.
Between 1960 and 1965, three terrible things happened. Theo, one of his children, was hit by a taxi in New York and was badly hurt. Luckily, he got well soon. However, Olivia, one of Roald's daughters, died of an illness. Soon after this, his wife also had a serious illness. It took her two years to get completely better.
Roald became more and more successful. He always did his writing in an old room at the back of his house. He always sat in the same old armchair. “One of the nice things about being a writer," he once said, "is that you just need what you've got in your head and a pencil and a bit of paper."
In 1983, Roald won a big prize for his book The BFG (The Big Friendly Gian). During his life, Roald wrote many famous books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, and James and the Giant Peach.
After his death in 1990, Roald left money to help children and adults with serious illnesses or with problems with reading and writing.
