Science-fiction author Ray Bradbury died this week at the age of 91 after a long illness, according to note posted on his official website.
"In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create," the note said. "A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time."
One of his best-known works is Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel published in 1953 that describes a society where books are outlawed and burned. In a 2007 interview with LA Weekly, Bradbury said the book is about how TV destroys interest in reading. "Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was," Bradbury said at the time.
Despite his misgivings about TV, however, 65 of Bradbury's stories were adapted for TV via The Ray Bradbury Theater. The series ran on HBO from 1985 to 1986 and on USA Network from 1988 to 1992, later showing up as reruns on Syfy.
In a 2005 book of essays, titled Bradbury Speaks, the author wrote that "in my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior."
On his website, the note pointed to one of Bradbury's favorite stories, when he met carnival magician Mr. Electrico in 1932. "At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped."
Bradbury also penned The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, among other titles, as well as the screenplay for the film adaptation of Moby Dick.
He is survived by four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, died in 2003, after 57 years of marriage.
In the wake of Bradbury's death, The New Yorker announced today that it has unlocked access to two Bradbury stories that appeared in the magazine - a 1947 short story titled I See You Never and Take Me Home, an essay that appeared just last week in The New Yorker's science fiction issue.
[Image Credit: The Guardian]
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