Ray Bradbury. Image from Washington Post
Sad news. Our dear Ray Bradbury has died yesterday.
I´m thinking how he has imagined his own death, with such a prolific imagination. Maybe he saw himself travelling throughout the Universe, personally meeting all the characters that he created in his novels and stories.
It´s difficult to say goodbye to him, I prefer to say ¨Bon voyage dear Ray¨. And every time I open any of your books, I´ll be thinking you are still here.
Sharing from Washington Post:
Ray Bradbury. Image from blog.zap2it.com
Ray Bradbury, a boundlessly imaginative novelist who wrote some of the most popular science fiction books of all time, including “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Martian Chronicles,” and who transformed the genre of flying saucers and little green men into a medium exploring childhood terrors, colonialism and the erosion of individual thought, died June 5. He was 91.
The death was announced by the Associated Press.
Mr. Bradbury, who began his career in the 1930s contributing stories to pulp-fiction magazines, received a special Pulitzer Prize citation in 2007 “for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy.”
His body of work, which continued to appear through recent years to terrific reviews, encompassed more than 500 titles, including novels, plays (“Dandelion Wine,” adapted from his 1957 semi-autobiographical novel), children’s books and short stories. His tales were often adapted for film, including the futuristic story of a book-burning society (director François Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451,” in 1966), a suspense story about childhood fears (“Something Wicked This Way Comes” in 1983) and the more straightforward alien attack story (“It Came From Outer Space” in 1953).
He helped write filmmaker John Huston’s 1956 movie adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick” and contributed scripts to the television anthology programs “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Mr. Bradbury hosted his own science fiction anthology program, “The Ray Bradbury Theater,” from 1985 to 1992 on the HBO and USA cable networks.
“Bradbury took the conventions of the science fiction genre — time travel, robots, space exploration — and made them signify beyond themselves, giving them a broader and more nuanced emotional appeal to general readers,” said William F. Touponce, a founder and former director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. (....)
“The Martian Chronicles,” released to wide acclaim in 1950, used the guide of science fiction to explore colonialism, nuclear war and the transformative power of one’s environment.
The book sealed his reputation as a science fiction writer, but Mr. Bradbury frequently eschewed the label.
“People say, ‘Are you a fantasy writer?’ No,” Mr. Bradbury told the Charlotte Observer in 1997. “ ‘Are you a science fiction writer?’ No. I’m a magician.”
He explained, “Science fiction is the art of the possible, not the art of the impossible. As soon as you deal with things that can’t happen, you are writing fantasy.”
Myriam, lectura obligada. Aquí tenemos el ejemplo de una película que fue tan exitosa como el libro.
ReplyDeleteEsta frase lo dibuja por entero:
«No tienes que quemar libros para destruir una cultura: sólo haz que la gente deje de leer…» Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
Estará en la memoria de muchos de nosotros y de los que nos sigan.
Saludos marcianos.
Gracias Sergio, la verdad me dió mucha pena la noticia, a mis quince años me leí todos sus libros publicados, luego hubo más pero no fueron lo mismo...
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