Your faithful blogger was saddened to hear of Ray Bradbury's death this morning. Mr. Bradbury's works took up a lot of my days during junior high school.
From
RayBradbury.com
Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal
of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5,
2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired
generations of readers to dream, think, and create. 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. His groundbreaking works
include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man,
Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen
play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was
nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for
television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay
of The Halloween Tree. In 2005, Bradbury published a book of essays
titled Bradbury Speaks, in which he wrote: 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.
He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren,
Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His
wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of
marriage.
Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a
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.
