Sophie Dahl Grows Up

Posted on April 8, 2008

Sophie Dahl, the granddaughter of bestselling author Roald Dahl (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Patricia Neal, talks about her past life as a plus-size model and her current career as an author.

Q: Did having writers in your family lead you to write?
A: "Growing up surrounded by people who wrote for a living made it seen like a viable reality. Had I grown up with parents or grandparents in classic nine-to-five jobs, it would have felt further away. It was always something I wanted to do."
Q: Do you mind people comparing you work to your grandfather's � or even your mother, Tessa Dahl, who is a writer?
A: "It is such an easy route to take, comparing me with my grandfather, but I couldn't take that sort of comparison or criticism on board. It is really irrelevant as you are talking about totally different mediums. He was a genius, beloved pretty universally, a great children's writer and adult fiction writer. I am just at the beginning of my career."
Q: Did you get on with him? (Roald Dahl died in 1990)
A: "I adored him. I grew up spending a lot of time with him, with all my grandparents. He was a great story-teller. He was sparky and wonderful and curious and never patronized children, which comes across in his writing."

Sophie first published a novella called "The Man with the Dancing Eyes." Her first full-length novel is Playing with the Grown-ups. Sophie's next venture will be a cookbook which will no doubt be a bestseller, given her amazing weight loss.