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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.""
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