Roald Dahl's 'Matilda' at 30
Thursday 27th September 2018
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original publication of Roald Dahl's Matilda, which first appeared in 1988, Quentin was asked to imagine Dahl's child-genius as she might have become as an adult. He said:
'It was not long ago that the publisher of Matilda pointed out to me that the book was published thirty years ago so that, if we thought of Matilda as a real person, she would also be thirty years older - and might I have any thoughts about what she would be doing now. since as a small child Matilda was gifted in several different ways, that wasn't very difficult. I imagined that for each version of our grown-up Matilda one of her extraordinary talents and achievements had come to the fore and shown her a role in life. Here are some of them:
Matilda, Chief Executive of the British Library: Interviewed by the editor of the London Review of Books, Dr Wormwood said, 'It's reassuring to know that I am never going to run out of something to read'.
Matilda, the World Traveller: When she spoke to the foreign correspondent of The Times in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, Matilda explained, 'As a child I travelled the world in the books of Hemingway and Kipling and other writers. Now I am old enough I decided I should go myself.'
Matilda, Head of the International Astrophysics Institute: Professor Wormwood explained in an interview: 'Even as a small child I could do mathematics in my head. I never quite knew how it happened, but the skill seems to have stayed with me.'
Look out for special 30th anniversary editions of 'Matilda', featuring new covers based on these drawings, publishing on 4 October, as well as further releases of more drawings from the series!