One of my favourite writers, Roald Dahl, was born in Wales on September 13, 1916. His parents were Norwegian, but he never lived in Norway. He did come here on vacation, though.
Even though he is one of my favourites, I didn't really know that it was his birthday today. Neither did I know that there are lots of events in memory of him today. There's even a web site for celebrating the Roald Dahl day: http://www.roalddahlday.info. And Google celebrates this day by having a Google logo with elements from his books:
I'm not sure what the G part is, but I think it might be Matilda. The second O is a peach, and the L is a Wonka Bar with golden ticket.
He's mostly know for his childrens books, but he's also written lots of short stories for adults and two autobiographies. The short stories are rather dark and nasty. The childrens books are funny, witty, dark and nasty as well.
The first book I read (or rather that my mum read to me) was "The Witches". This was made into a movie in 1990, starring Anjelica Huston as the main witch. I hate that movie. It's actually very good up to the last 5 minutes, when it gets destroyed by making it a "happy ending". The movies I like the most are "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "Danny the Champion of the World". I'm really looking forward to the adaptation of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", in which George Clooney and Cate Blanchett will lend their voices to Mr. and Mrs. Fox.
Lots of information about Roald Dahl can be found at http://www.roalddahl.com/!