Celebrated writer Ray Bradbury dies aged 91

Bradbury’s vision of a hi-tech, book-burning future Fahrenheit 451 was turned into a feature film.

He also wrote the 1956 film version of Moby Dick and wrote for The Twilight Zone TV series.

His series of stories in The Martian Chronicles, also later turned into a TV series, was a Cold War morality tale in which events on another planet served as a commentary on life on this planet. It has been published in more than 30 languages.

Although slowed in recent years by a stroke, Bradbury remained active, turning out new novels, plays, screenplays and a volume of poetry.

Bradbury’s literary style was honed in pulp magazines and influenced by Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, and he became the rare science fiction writer treated seriously by the literary world.

His fame even extended to the moon, where Apollo astronauts named a crater Dandelion Crater, in honour of Dandelion Wine, his beloved coming-of-age novel, and an asteroid was named 9766 Bradbury.