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Ayn Rand Facts

Ayn Rand Facts
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer best known for her novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. She was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum on February 2nd, 1905, in Saint Petersburg in the Russian Empire. Her parents were Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna, and she had two younger sisters. Ayn began writing novels at the age of ten. During the October Revolution Ayn's family was displaced and fled to Crimea where she graduated from high school at 16. The Russian Revolution ended and Ayn was able to be one of the first female students at Petrograd State University, where she studied history. She graduated in 1924, and furthered her education with a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad.
Interesting Ayn Rand Facts:
In 1926 Ayn visited relatives in New York City, and then made her way across the country to Hollywood where her screenwriting career began.
In 1929 Ayn Rand married Frank O'Connor, an actor she met while working on the movie The King of Kings.
Ayn Rand became a permanent resident of the United States in 1929, and she became an American citizen in 1931.
Ayn Rand sold her first screenplay Red Pawn in 1932 to Universal Studios. It was never produced.
Ayn Rand's first novel was We the Living, an intellectually-autobiographical work of fiction set in Russia. The book did not sell well in the U.S. immediately, but in 1959 when it was revised and released it sold more than three million copies.
Ayn Rand's published fiction novels include We the Living (1936), The Fountainhead (1943), and Atlas Shrugged (1957).
Ayn Rand wrote Night of January 16th, a play that debuted as Woman on Trial at Hollywood Playhouse (1932). It was published in hardcover in 1968.
Ayn Rand wrote a novella titled Anthem in 1937. It was published a year later. It was a dystopian work of science fiction set in a futuristic dark age.
Ayn Rand wrote several non-fiction books including For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1961), The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), The Romantic Manifesto (1969), The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971), Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979), and Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982).
The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction was published in 1984, after Ayn Rand had passed away. It was a collection of her earlier unpublished fiction.
Three Plays was published in 2005. It was a collection of three plays written by Ayn Rand including Night of January 16th, Ideal, and Think Twice.
In the 1960s and 1970s Ayn Rand promoted her philosophy on Objectivism. She gave lectures at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton to students.
Ayn Rand received an honorary doctorate in 1963 from Lewis & Clark College.
Ayn Rand smoked heavily and in 1974 underwent surgery for lung cancer.
Ayn Rand received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, given for classic works of libertarian science fiction, for Atlas Shrugged in 1983, and Anthem in 1987.
Ayn Rand died on March 6th, 1982 in New York City, at her home.


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