Ray Bradbury: life, works and death

We explain who Ray Bradbury was, what his main literary works were and why he is considered one of the greatest science fiction authors.

Ray Bradbury was known as the “poet” of science fiction by his contemporaries.

Who was Ray Bradbury?

Ray Bradbury was a American science fiction writerwhose most notable works were Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451He was an extremely prolific author, who also dabbled in poetry and drama, and his stories have often been adapted for film and television.

Considered one of the great masters of science fiction by the Science Fiction Writers Association of America, Bradbury was known as the “poet of science fiction”, as he was dubbed by fellow writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), due to his nostalgic and romantic style.

Bradbury He predicted in his stories several technological advancessuch as ATMs and wireless headphones. His texts, lectures and opinions also served as inspiration for several generations of writers and even film creators such as Steven Spielberg (1946-).

Childhood and youth of Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois, in the United StatesHis parents were Leonard Spaulding Bradbury and Esther Moberg, who already had two four-year-old twin sons: Leonard and Sam. Ray was born after ten months of pregnancy and, throughout his life, he claimed to be able to remember his birth, the pleasure of breastfeeding and the pain of his circumcision.

From his early childhood, Bradbury was an avid reader.. The novels of L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) caused him special fascination, as well as certain horror films, such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925) by Rupert Julian (1879-1943) and, later, science fiction magazines, such as the famous Amazing Stories by Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967).

The Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1934, where Ray completed his secondary education and began writing his first stories. At the age of sixteen he joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, a local group of young science fiction writers.thanks to which he met prominent writers of the genre, such as Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) or Leigh Douglass Brackett (1915-1978), from whom he received advice.

In high school, Bradbury discovered astronomy, and was greatly interested in the Moon and especially in Mars.Although he finished high school in 1938, he was unable to attend university due to his family’s financial difficulties. He then found a job as a newspaper delivery boy, while he devoted himself to training as a self-taught writer.

That same year he published his first short story, entitled “The Hollerbochen Dilemma”in the magazine Imagination! of the group of young writers to which he belonged. The following year, he also published his own magazine, entitled Futuristic Fantasyand attended the first World Science Fiction Convention in New York.

In 1941, Bradbury sold his story “Pendulum” to a professional science fiction magazine., Super Science Stories. Other stories of his had already appeared in Weird Tales and Planet Storiesbut from then on it began to appear in larger magazines, such as The American Mercury, Harper’s either McCall’s.

Many of these stories appeared in his first book, Dark Carnivalpublished in 1947, which did not have much impact among readers.

American science fiction literature had its so-called “Golden Age” between approximately 1939 and 1950. It was characterized by “hard” science fiction stories (hard science fictionin English), with linear plots and heroic protagonists, and an emphasis on the technical or scientific aspects of the plot. This golden age was followed by the so-called “new wave” of the 1960s and 1970s.

The poet of science fiction

Bradbury met his wife Margaret in 1947 and they were together for the rest of their lives.

In 1946, Bradbury met Margaret McClure in a bookstore, whom he married the following year. “Maggie” and Ray were together until her death in 2003, and from 1949 they had four daughters: Susan, Ramona, Bettina and Alexandra..

During those first years of marriage, Margaret supported the family financially, while Ray devoted himself fully to writing. Bradbury’s income was meager until the appearance in 1950 of what is perhaps his most famous book: Martian Chroniclesa collection of stories that narrate the arrival of man on Mars and the subsequent colonization, crisis and abandonment of the planet.

According to Bradbury, Martian Chronicles was partially inspired by Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck (1902-1968). Since its appearance, the book was a success among the reading public and specialized critics, to the point of receiving praise from international authors, such as Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and earning Bradbury the nickname of “the poet of science fiction”.

The following year, Bradbury published another collection of short stories, The illustrated manand in 1953 another one: The golden apples of the sun. That same year the other great success of his career appeared: Fahrenheit 451a dystopian novel about a society in which books are banned and there is a “firefighters” corps (firemenin English) dedicated to searching for and burning any surviving specimens.

Fahrenheit 451 was an immediate success and brought Bradbury stardom. A year after its publication, the novel won the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Literature Award, and in later decades it received the Prometheus Award (1984) and the Hugo Award (2004). In addition, The book inspired a stage version written by Bradbury himself and a famous 1966 film version. Directed by the famous French director François Truffaut (1932-1984).

The novel first appeared in installments in the newly founded magazine Playboyand its success was such that it immediately opened up new creative opportunities for Bradbury.In 1954, for example, he spent several months in Ireland with director John Huston (1906-1987), working on the script for a film version of Moby Dick.

Released in 1956, this film was Bradbury’s prelude as a screenwriter for television series, such as Playhouse 90, Unknown dimension either Alfred Hitchcock presentsWith this last director he was about to work on the script for Birds (1963), but the collaboration never came to fruition.

Bradbury’s late works

Cover of the first edition of Dandelion WineBradbury’s autobiographical novel.

After a four-year gap without publishing, Bradbury returned to the ring in 1957 with an autobiographical novel entitled The wine of summer (Dandelion Winein English). It was his first publication outside the science fiction genre, although it addresses his childhood memories from a fantastic or surrealist point of view..

The book was well received, so soon after Bradbury attempted a sequel, The summer of farewellwhich its editors considered very inferior and was only published fifty years later, in 2006.

During the 1960s, Bradbury resumed his prolific short story writing and ventured into a new genre: playwriting.In 1963 his first collection of works appeared, set in Ireland and entitled The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics. At that time, in addition, the first television programs inspired by his work appeared: The World of Ray Bradbury and The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.

In 1970, Bradbury’s interest in cinema and theatre was joined by poetry. He wrote seventeen collections of poems, which, although they were not very successful individually, have been collected in various compilations and anthologies by the author.

In addition, in the 1980s, Bradbury ventured into the genre not to go with Death is a lonely affaira short novel from 1985, in which he paid homage to great authors of detective novels, such as Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) or Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961). This novel had two sequels: Cemetery for lunatics in 1990 and Let’s all kill Constance in 2002.

Also, during this time, Bradbury wrote several works of essays and non-fiction, among which stands out his Zen in the art of writing (1990).

The final years of Ray Bradbury

Bradbury received numerous accolades during the 2000s.

The 2000s began with a hard blow for Bradbury: the death of his wife Maggie in 2003.. Ray was already having some health problems at that time, following the stroke he suffered in 1999.

This, however, did not prevent him from receiving several awards, such as the United States National Medal of Arts and the Hugo Award in retrospect for Fahrenheit 451both in 2004; the Reino de Redonda Prize in Spain in 2006 and a special mention in the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.

Ray Bradbury died in Los Angeles, United States, on July 5, 2012, at the age of ninety-one.He was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery and at his request the tombstone on his grave reads “Author of Fahrenheit 451.” He left behind around 500 written stories, books in almost every literary genre and a creative legacy appreciated not only by his readers and followers, but also by the great personalities of literary and cinematic culture.

After his death, Bradbury received various tributes, such as:

• It was called “Dandelion” to a lunar crater in homage to his autobiography Dandelion Wine.
• Asteroid 9766 “Bradbury” was named in his honor.
• The Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Award was established.
• A star was unveiled in his name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

References

• Amato, A. (2021). “The fascinating life of Ray Bradbury, the genius who predicted that humanity would walk on Mars 70 years ago.” Infobae. https://www.infobae.com/
• Beley, G. (2006). Ray Bradbury Uncensored!: The Unauthorized Biography. iUniverse.
• Eller, J. (2011). Becoming Ray Bradbury. University of Illinois Press.
• Gregersen, E. (2023). Ray Bradbury (American writer). The Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
• Subirana Abanto, K. (2020). “One Hundred Years of Ray Bradbury: The Poet of Science Fiction”. Trade. https://elcomercio.pe/

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