Happy Birthday Roald Dahl: 5 authors pick their favourite stories by the British novelist

To celebrate his birthday on September 13, we ask a few of your favourite writers to pick their favourite Roald Dahl story

1. Matilda

“The book, and the film have Dahl at his best, mocking the complacencies of the adult world through Matilda’s deeply obnoxious parents, and presenting Miss Trunchbull, the nastiest, funniest headmistress in history. I’ve watched it with my granddaughter again and again.”
—Namita Gokhale

2. The Twits

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly...” – Roald Dahl, The Twits. When I was young, this Roald Dahl quote did more than any moral science class or sermon to motivate me to be a good person always.”
—Anuja Chauhan

3. Boy

“The thing about Roald Dahl is that he can take normal people and push them over the precipice of absurdity. Boy lets you in to the life of a most beloved author and makes you believe that you can be a writer too.”
—Paro Anand

4. George’s Marvelous Medicine

“The first Roald Dahl book I ever read was George’s Marvelous Medicine in 1988. That a simple child living in a farm could hold such power over a pernicious blood relative was darkly comic and yet inspiring to me.”
—Meghna Pant

5. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

“The stories in this book reveal something beyond Dahl’s trademark funny-macabre style. I’ll never forget The Swan, in which a young boy is bullied viciously until, in the end, he literally soars above his tormentors. The title story is brilliant too – about a man whose greed turns into asceticism when he acquires superhuman powers of sight.”
—Parvati Sharma

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From HT Brunch, September 8, 2019

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