Matilda - Roald Dahl's best-loved story - is an unbelievable 25 years old yet it's as fresh, funny and poignant as when it was first published in 1988. The story of a child genius, it has been adapted into film and, most recently, a hugely successful, award-winning musical with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin.
Five-year old Matilda longs for her parents to be good and loving and understanding, but they are none of these things. They are perfectly horrid to her. Matilda invents a game of punishing them each time they treat her badly and she soon discovers she has supernatural powers. A Welsh translation of the award-winning Dahl title Matilda by Elin Meek. Hen leidr cas yw tad Matilda Wormwood a thwpsen yw ei mam. Maen nhw'n meddwl bod Matilda'n boendod ac y dylai hi wylio rhagor o deledu a darllen llai o lyfrau! Ond mae Miss Honey, ei hathrawes hyfryd, yn credu bod Matilda yn athrylith. Mae gan Matilda rai triciau rhyfeddol yn ei llawes, felly gwell i'r brifathrawes a'i rhieni ofnadwy, fod yn ofalus. Cyfieithiad Cymraeg gan Elin Meek.
Roald Dahl was born in Wales of Norwegian parents – the child of a second marriage. His father and elder sister died when Roald was just three. His mother was left to raise two stepchildren and her own four children. Roald was her only son.
He had an unhappy time at school - at Llandaff Cathedral School, at St Peter’s prep school in Weston-super-Mare and then at Repton in Derbyshire.
Dahl’s unhappy time at school was to influence his writing greatly. He once said that what distinguished him from most other children’s writers was “this business of remembering what it was like to be young”. Roald’s childhood and schooldays are the subject of his autobiography Boy.
Since Roald Dahl’s death, his books have more than maintained their popularity. Total sales of the UK editions are around 37 million, with more than 1 million copies sold every year! Sales have grown particularly strongly in America where Dahl books are now achieving the bestselling status that curiously proved elusive during the author’s lifetime.
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