Ray Bradbury is an American writer, thanks to whom fiction has taken its rightful place in the world of literature. He is the author of more than eight hundred novels and short stories, short stories and plays. But the most famous works are, of course, “Dandelion Wine” and “451 degrees Fahrenheit”.
Bradbury's biography is amazing. He never attended literary courses and never went to college, but already in his youth he was an extremely erudite person. He began his career by writing poetry, and years later received the title of “master of fiction”. He worked for many years as a newspaper salesman, and subsequently earned millions in fees for publishing his books. And finally, Ray Bradbury, whose biography covers almost a century, the last years of his life was confined to a wheelchair, but he did not lose his sense of humor and only complained that he could not live to see the centennial. “But a hundred sounds more solid,” he said in a recent interview.
How did Ray become a writer ...
Bradbury's biography began in the city of Waukegan in 1920. We can say that the childhood of the future writer was happy. Mom read bedtime to the boy “The Wizard of Oz” and, oddly enough, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Parents took him to the movies for the films The Lost World and The Phantom of the Opera. Ray was surrounded by love and attention.
Observation, a love of magical fiction, a tendency to think - all this was manifested in the author of the philosophical novel "Wine from Dandelions" very early. Without these qualities, he would never have become a writer.
It is worth saying that Ray Bradbury, whose biography includes attempts to realize himself as a poet, and years of work in cheap literary magazines, was born in a poor family. And the lack of wealth is not the best condition for creativity. Nevertheless, he wrote his first work at the age of twelve. And this happened precisely because of the poverty that his family was doomed to during the years of the Great Depression.
Ray Douglas Bradbury, whose biography contains rather gloomy periods, from an early age he read hard. But parents did not have money for books. Once, having read the novel The Great Warrior of Mars and not having the opportunity to buy Burroughs' next book, he decided to compose a sequel. So twelve-year-old Ray became a writer.
Literary debut
If you try to present a brief biography of Bradbury, you get a straightforward story about a talented boy from a poor family living in a dream world and who became rich and famous solely thanks to hard work. A story similar to a fairy tale. But life was getting harder.
At sixteen he published the first work of Ray Bradbury (a brief biography in any anthology mentions this event). But it could hardly be called a literary debut. The first published work was a poem. Then Bradbury wrote several short stories that showed Edgar Poe's influence. These works were published by cheap magazines, containing, as a rule, the creations of beginners and immature authors. It will be many more years until he finds his own style of writing Ray Bradbury.
A brief biography of this writer, included in textbooks on the history of American literature, certainly tells how he worked for many years in order to hone his literary skill, being published in various magazines. Each month he created at least five stories. At the same time, he found time to follow the development of science, to attend various exhibitions.
Margaret
In 1946, Ray Douglas Bradbury met his future wife. The biography of every great man contains at least a small romantic story. Usually sad. Bradbury's biography is no exception. However, the love story of this prose writer is by no means sad. He lived a long happy life with Margaret Maclure, had four children. And, perhaps, he could not have made such a significant contribution to world literature if it had not been for the meeting with this woman.
"Martian Chronicles"
Writing fees did not bring Bradbury the desired prosperity. Margaret worked a lot in order to feed her family and provide her husband with the opportunity to be creative. Success came after the publication of the book The Martian Chronicles, which Ray quite rightly dedicated to Margaret.
"The trouble is coming"
This novel was first published in 1962. Bradbury originally wrote the script. The film was supposed to be directed by Gene Kelly. However, due to lack of funding, the filming did not begin. The writer had no choice but to convert the script into a book, which was called "Trouble is Coming." The heroes of the work are children. Boys once run away from home, they dream of getting to the carnival. They succeed, but during the holiday, children become witnesses of an amazing transformation.
In the early sixties, Bradbury continued to publish short stories. But during this period he was also interested in dramatic art. The first collection of plays was published in 1963. And a few years later, the project “Ray Bradbury World” was launched on television. As you might guess, the show was filmed based on the plays of the creator of Dandelion Wines. Bradbury was interested in dramaturgy until the early seventies. Then a collection of poetic works was published. Bradbury published in various magazines, wrote short stories, of which far from all were related to the genre of fiction.
"451 degrees Fahrenheit"
In 1951, he published his main book, Bradbury. The biography of this American prose writer, as it has already become clear, tells not only about fame and huge writing fees. Fame came to him a few years after the publication of "451 degrees Fahrenheit." At least in the homeland of Bradbury.
A brief biography, which sets out only the most important events in the life of the writer, will certainly mention the incident that happened to him during a banquet dedicated to the delivery of the Oscars. At the ceremony, the writer met with the director Sergei Bondarchuk, who not only recognized the author of the famous dystopia, but also preferred communicating with him to acquaintance with Hollywood celebrities. The USSR was the most reading country, and its inhabitants a book about a society in which any desire to think critically is pursued, turned out to be much closer than compatriots R. Bradbury.
The biography of the hero of this article still has a lot of interesting facts. But before telling about the last years of the writer’s life, it’s worth answering the questions: what is the uniqueness of Bradbury’s creative style? What contribution did he make to contemporary literature?
Features of the work of Bradbury
The biography and work of the American science fiction writer is a rather interesting topic. Especially because, according to many, he was the very "non-American writer." Born and raised in the United States, Bradbury is often called the "master of fiction." At the same time, his literature gravitates to a parable, fantasy. And he himself raised questions in his works that worried a few of his compatriots. The tragedy of a society whose representatives are deprived of the ability to create and think independently is shown in the book 451 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet Bradbury is perhaps the most optimistic writer of the last century. In most of his works, it is the joy of life or, as one of the critics put it, “a happy absorption of life experience” plays a major role.
Last years
Even when the writer was confined to a wheelchair, he did not stop working. His works came out every year. Bradbury's latest novel was published in 2006. At the age of 79, the writer suffered a stroke, after which he was partially paralyzed, but according to the writer's relatives and friends, he did not lose his sense of humor and presence of mind. In a recent interview, Ray Bradbury joked: “It would be nice to live up to a hundred. Then they will immediately give me some prize. Just because I’m not dead yet. "
Ray Bradbury died in the ninety-second year of his life, June 5, 2012. After his death, an article was published in The New Yorker in which this writer, along with Hemingway and Salinger, was named one of the most widely read American prose writers in the Soviet Union.