Dana El-Kurd

You probably won't believe it either.

I'm telling you.

The guy was a spy.

Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelts, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman?

And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film.

How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever?

And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids?

The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.

Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Yeah, yeah.

Hi, Dana.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Elia.

I'm originally from Lebanon.

My background is in both history and journalism, and I often write about the region.

I'm also part Palestinian, and I also write a lot about Israel and Palestine.

And obviously, in the past few years, I've been covering and also worrying a lot about what's been happening.

So what's been happening in Lebanon is directly connected to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which started, what, about 20 to 23 days ago, something like that.

That was in itself in the context of negotiations between the Americans and the Iranians in Switzerland mediated by Oman.

And just moments later, really that same night, the bombing of Iran started.