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Bio: Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her family lived in a large, comfortable apartment above the chemist shop owned by her father. From her earliest years, the girl felt alienated from the dark, brooding atmosphere of Russia, but loved the bright world projected in stories appearing in foreign magazines. At age nine she made the conscious decision to become a writer.

In her teens, she discovered the works of great romantic writers such as Victor Hugo and Edmond Rostand. But as her private vision of human potential expanded, the social horizons of human possibility were shrinking around her. In February 1917 she witnessed the first shots of the Russian Revolution from her balcony. Soon, a communist gang nationalized her father’s shop. Almost overnight, her family was reduced to crushing poverty.

Against the growing squalor of Soviet life, the young woman nurtured a burning desire to abandon Russia for the West. She obtained a passport to visit relatives in Chicago, and left Russia and her family in January 1926, never to return. She arrived in New York City weeks later, with only $50 in her purse. Her extraordinary perseverance and talent eventually paid off with two Broadway plays, and publication of her first novel, We the Living.

But the book that made her famous was The Fountainhead. Published in 1943, this great novel of American individualism presented Rand’s mature portrait of Man as hero, in the character of architect Howard Roark. It has remained a bestseller for over half a century, selling millions of copies.

If The Fountainhead created controversy, Atlas Shrugged fomented a furor. In this gigantic Romantic epic, Rand dramatized the major elements of her challenging new philosophy of reason, individualism, and capitalism, which she called Objectivism. This novel was to be the capstone of her literary and philosophic career. After publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Rand turned to nonfiction, elaborating her philosophy in many essays, columns, and public appearances. Her colorful and tumultuous life ended on March 6, 1982 at her New York apartment.