Donald Sturrock Wins Biography of the Year

Donald Sturrock has won Biography of the Year at the 2011 Spear's Book Awards for Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl (HarperCollins, 2010, £25.00).

In this masterly biography, written with unprecedented access to Dahl's private papers and with reference to hundreds of newly discovered letters, Donald Sturrock reveals many hitherto hidden aspects of Roald Dahl's extraordinary life: his terrifying experiences as a fighter pilot, his years in Washington during the Second World War; the mental anguish caused by the trio of family disasters that truck him in the 1960s.  These began when his son was hit by a taxi and crushed against the side of a bus, continuing two years later with the death of his seven-year-old daughter from measles, and concluding with the terrible stroke of his first wife, the Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal.  How Dahl dealt with these disasters and how afterwards, in his mid-fifties, he fell in love for the first time, making irresistable reading.

Reviews for Storyteller:

'[A] superb biography ... a hugely readable portrait that examines vividly and sympathetically the life and work of a difficult, complex author who was adored by millions of children' Sunday Telegraph

'It is a measure of the greatness of this biography that Sturrock is able to get behind [Dahl's] fantasies and exaggerations without losing respect or sympathy.  We simply don't live lives with Roald Dahl's anymore' The Times

'Donald Sturrock [is] a creative and sensitive biographer ... minutely researched, Storyteller does Dahl the service, as Dahl did for some of his characters, of revealing the human in the monstrous.' Times Literary Supplement

'This is [Donald Sturrock's] first biography and it is hard to see how he could have done it better ... there was something magnificently bullish about Roald Dahl ... Sturrock captures this side of him beautifully' Mail on Sunday

'What shines out from this intimately informed biography is Dahl's vitality, courage and passion for life ... Sturrock has managed it with zest and aplomb ... Dahl was vivid and dynamic and this vivid, dynamic book gives you the illusion that you knew him'  Sunday Times

'A tremendously assured piece of work ... Deftly, and with great acuity, [Sturrock] manages to embrace Dahl's numerous contradictions' Spectator

'Irresistable.  I thought I knew quite a lot about Roald Dahl, but now I know much, much more. Donald Sturrock's book lucidly describes a complicated life and relates it to the richness of Dahl's storytelling' Quentin Blake, illustrator

'A truly magnificent biography by Donald Sturrock that tells the whole story ... a masterly account' A.N. Wilson

 

 

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