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Introduction
of Ray Bradbury
Winner of the 2000
DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS AWARD
Delivered
by Steve Martin
On Wednesday evening, November
15, 2000 at the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York
City, the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation
conferred its Medal
for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters upon
Ray Bradbury.
Mr. Bradbury's life work has
proclaimed the incalculable value of reading; the perils
of censorship; and the vital importance of building a better,
more beautiful future for ourselves and our children through
self-knowledge, education, and creative, life-affirming
attentiveness and risk-taking. These values are the
bedrock of the National Book Foundation.
The Foundation is proud to publish
on our website Mr. Bradbury's remarkable acceptance speech
as well as the introduction by National Book Award Master
of Ceremonies, Steve Martin.
2000 National Book Awards
Host Steve Martin |
Each year the Board of Directors
of the National Book Foundation confers a special award upon
an individual who has enriched our literary culture through
a life of service or a corpus of work. The National Book Foundation
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters will
be presented tonight to Ray
Bradbury.
Novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter,
and poet, Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois 80 years
ago. He grew up in Illinois and Arizona and his family moved
to Los Angeles in 1934, where Mr. Bradbury has lived ever
since. He married Marguerite McClure in 1947. They have four
daughters: Tina, Ramona, Susan, and Alexandra.
Ray Bradbury's first published story was called "Hollerbochen's
Dilemma," and it appeared in Imagination! Magazine.
The author was 18 years old.
Since that time, how can we even begin to count all of the
ways in which Ray Bradbury has etched his indelible impressions
upon the American literary landscape? There are few modern
authors who can claim such a wide and varied province for
their work, spanning from the secret
Ray Bradbury accepting the
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
at the 2000 National Book Awards. Photo Credit: Robin
Platzer/Twin Images. |
inner-worlds of childhood dreams,
to the magic realism of everyday life, to the infinite expanses
of outer space.
Half a century ago, The
Martian Chronicles was published and soon thereafter Fahrenheit
451 (by the way in Europe that would be "Centigrade
283")--the quintessential book lovers' book written in
nine days; and then Dandelion Wine, I Sing the Body
Electric, The Illustrated Man, The October Country,
Something Wicked This Way Comes. (By the way, the original
title was "Look Out, Here Comes Something Wicked".)
Ray Bradbury's prodigious and seemingly never-sleeping imagination
continues to delight us, and next fall his new novel, From
the Dust Returned, will be published by Avon Books.
What better way to conclude this introduction to Ray Bradbury
than to show a clip from the classic film "Fahrenheit
451", directed by Francois Truffaut starring Oscar Werner
and the incomparable Julie Christie. We extend thanks to Universal
Pictures for providing this excerpt. Let's roll the film.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ray Bradbury. |
