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.
