Històries imprevistes

by Roald Dahl, Rosa Maria Borràs Montané (Translator)

Overview

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) va néixer a Gal·les, de pares noruecs, i als 18 anys se?n va anar a viure a l?Àfrica. Durant la Segona Guerra Mundial va ser pilot de la Royal Air Force britànica i va descobrir el seu talent literari quan la revista The Saturday Evening Post li va comprar una narració on explicava la seva experiència com a pilot de guerra. A partir d¡aleshores Roald Dahl es va convertir en un dels grans renovadors de la literatura juvenil del segle XX. Ens ha deixat obres com Agu Trot, Les bruixes, La meravellosa història de Henry Sugar, El nen, Sol pel món, La meravellosa medicina d?en Jordi, L?autostopista o Matilda, totes publicades per Empúries. Històries imprevistes són setze relats àcids i macabres plens d?humor negre, sorpreses esgarrifoses i girs inesperats. Un home que aposta la mà de la seva filla amb un expert enòleg, un viatger que es llança per la borda d?un transatlàntic per guanyar una aposta, uns hostes que romanen a casa d?una mestressa més temps del que preveien o un gat misteriós que amenaça la vida domèstica són alguns dels extravagants personatges que protagonitzen aquestes històries imprevistes. Amb els elements extraordinaris, el sentit de l?humor de sempre i l?ingeni que el caracteritza, Roald Dahl ens mostra, una vegada més, el seu domini del sobrenatural, el terror i l?humor alhora que supera, com sempre, les expectatives de tots els lectors, ja siguin grans o petits.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788416367351
Publisher:	Grup 62
Publication date:	12/15/2015
Sold by:	Planeta
Format:	eBook
File size:	386 KB
Language:	Catalan

About the Author

"I have never met a boy who so persistently writes the exact opposite of what he means," a teacher once wrote in the young Roald Dahl's report card. "He seems incapable of marshaling his thoughts on paper." From such inauspicious beginnings emerged an immensely successful author whom The Evening Standard would one day dub "one of the greatest children's writers of all time."

Dahl may have been an unenthusiastic student, but he loved adventure stories, and when he finished school he went out into the world to have some adventures of his own. He went abroad as a representative of the Shell corporation in Dar-es-Salaam, and then served in World War II as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. After the war, Dahl began his writing career in earnest, publishing two well-received collections of short stories for adults, along with one flop of a novel.

The short stories, full of tension and subtle psychological horror, didn't seem to presage a children's author. Malcolm Bradbury wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "[Dahl's] characters are usually ignoble: he knows the dog beneath the skin, or works hard to find it." Yet this talent for finding, and exposing, the nastier sides of grown-up behavior served him well in writing for children. As Dahl put it, "Writing is all propaganda, in a sense. You can get at greediness and selfishness by making them look ridiculous. The greatest attribute of a human being is kindness, and all the other qualities like bravery and perseverance are secondary to that."

In 1953, Dahl married the actress Patricia Neal; two of his early children's books, James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) grew out of the bedtime stories he made up for their children. Elaine Moss, writing in the Times, called the latter "the funniest children's book I have read in years; not just funny but shot through with a zany pathos which touches the young heart." Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a colossal hit. A film version starring Gene Wilder was released in 1971 (as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), while James and the Giant Peach was made into a movie in 1996.

Dahl followed his initial successes with a string of bestsellers, including Danny, the Champion of the World, The Twits, The BFG, The Witches and Matilda. Some adults objected to the books' violence -- unpleasant characters (like James¿s Aunts Sponge and Spiker) tend to get bumped off in grotesque and inventive ways -- but Dahl defended his stories as part of a tradition of gruesome fairy tales in which mean people get what they deserve. "These tales are pretty rough, but the violence is confined to a magical time and place," he said, adding that children like violent stories as long as they're "tied to fantasy and humor." By the time of his death in 1990, Dahl's mischievous wit had captivated so many readers that The Times called him "one of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation."

Date of Birth:

September 13, 1916

Date of Death:

November 23, 1990

Place of Birth:

Llandaff, Wales, England

Place of Death:

Oxford, England