Mark I. West, Ph.D., is among the experts featured in the #1 trending new podcast series “The Secret World of Roald Dahl,” produced byiHeartMedia, Imagine Entertainment and the award-winning audio company Parallax.
Created and hosted by Aaron Tracy, bestselling writer, producer and founder of Parallax, the series goes beyond Dahl’s iconic children’s books, including “James and the Giant Peach,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The BFG” and “Matilda,” to explore the complexities of Dahl’s life and legacy.
Across ten episodes, the podcast unpacks how Dahl’s past experiences as a businessman for Shell Oil, a fighter pilot during World War II, a spy for the British government and a struggling screenwriter in Hollywood may have found their way into his stories.
West, professor in UNC Charlotte’s Department of English, appears alongside a range of notable guests, including Yair Rosenberg, staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of its newsletter Deep Shtetl, Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author and cultural critic and Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma.
“They wanted somebody in the podcast to talk about Roald Dahl’s books, and why they were so popular and the connections between his short stories for adults and his children’s books,” said West, a leading expert in children’s and young adult literature. “But when they found out that I’d actually met him and had stories to tell, then they wanted to hear about that as well.”
The two writers corresponded for years, after West mailed Dahl a scholarly article he had written on “James and the Giant Peach.” To his surprise, Dahl replied, noting that West’s psychoanalysis was “probably right on more or less every count.”
“When people talk about Roald Dahl as a writer, they sometimes pretend he’s two different people because he initially became famous for his short stories for adults, but he also wrote some of the bestselling children’s books of all time,” said West. “But there are many connecting points that I’m able to bring to these kinds of discussions because I’ve read every single thing he published, and then I also got to know him as a person.”
West’s first interview with Dahl took place over the phone for his book, “Trust Your Children: Voices Against Censorship in Children’s Literature” (Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1988). He was then selected by Twayne Publishers to write a critical examination of Dahl’s literary career as part of an English authors series. Published in 1992, “Roald Dahl” analyzes both Dahl’s macabre short fiction for adults and his bestselling works for children.
“This book is really the only book about Roald Dahl that is a critical study of his writings,” explained West. “There have been several books about Roald Dahl as a person, but mine is about his books.”
While working on the book, West visited Dahl at his home in Great Missenden, a small town outside of London. Dahl picked him up at the train station, and after an initially prickly start, they spent the day drinking gin and tonics, exploring Dahl’s famous writing hut and discussing literature. The interview was published in “Children’s Literature in Education” in June 1990, just months before Dahl’s death.
“The last correspondence I had with him was about a giant peach. I was driving past Gaffney, South Carolina, to Atlanta and saw the water tower that looks like a peach,” said West. “So I stopped and bought a postcard of the water tower and sent it to him. I wrote on the postcard, ‘There really is a giant peach!’ and he responded thanking me for the postcard. He died a month or two later.”
After his death, West received special permission to review the manuscripts scheduled for posthumous publication, ensuring that his book accounted for every story in Dahl’s career.
After premiering on Jan. 19, additional episodes are released weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Podcasts and Pocket Casts. West appears in the final episode, scheduled to release on Monday, March 23.
The podcast quickly became the #1 trending show on Pocket Casts for four weeks in a row and climbed into the top five series on Apple Podcasts. The series has also been featured on Deadline, Forbes, Radio Online and received the Apple spotlight for New Shows.
Since joining UNC Charlotte’s Department of English in 1984, West has won numerous awards and established himself as a leading expert in the field of children’s and young adult literature. West helped build the children’s literature program within the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences into an internationally recognized center for the field.
In addition to his teaching, West has published over 20 books and authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and other essays during his career.
West’s expertise ranges from fairytales and early American classics, to popular culture including Harry Potter, Godzilla and Disney characters. He has written on and taught works such as “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” “The Wind in the Willows,” and “Winnie-the-Pooh,” and is a leading expert on L. Frank Baum, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl and Beatrix Potter.
In 2016, West received the Anne Devereaux Jordan Award from the Children’s Literature Association, the most prestigious honor in his field.
West regularly updates his Storied Charlotte blog, which Charlotte Lit praised in January 2024 as an “integral part of our community’s literary landscape,” uplifting local Charlotte authors and upcoming literary events.
Read more about West’s awards and storied career at UNC Charlotte.