Ray
Bradbury
Ray
Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist,
playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in
Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in
1938.Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of
life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942,
spending his nights in the public library and his days at the
typewriter.He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed
numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of
them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.
His reputation as a writer of
courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian
Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people
to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences.Next came
The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many
consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of
censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden.In
an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels
memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are
burned by the totalitarian state.Other works include The October
Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked
This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and
Driving Blind.In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books,
close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays.His
short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum
"recommended reading" anthologies.Mr. Bradbury's eagerly awaited new
novel, From the Dust Returned, will be published by William Morrow at
Halloween 2001.Morrow will release One More For the Road, a new
collection Bradbury stories, at Christmas 2001.
Ray Bradbury's
work has been included in four Best American Short Story collections.
He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin
Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand
Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN
Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.In November
2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution
to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000
National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City.
Ray Bradbury has
never confined his vision to the purely literary. He has been nominated
for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright),
and has won an Emmy Award (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree).He
adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's Ray Bradbury
Theater. He was the creative consultant on the United States Pavilion
at the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1982 he created the interior
metaphors for the Spaceship Earth display at Epcot Center, Disney
World, and later contributed to the conception of the Orbitron space
ride at Euro-Disney, France.
Married since
1947, Mr. Bradbury
and his wife Maggie live in Los Angeles with their four beloved
cats.They have four daughters and eight grandchildren.
On the
occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great
fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the
typewriter because some new idea has hit me.The feeling I have every
day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve.In any event,
here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great
sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me.I
have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll
come along."