IRVINE, CA--The Overlook Press has just published AYN RAND, a beautifully illustrated biography of one of America's most popular and important novelists and philosophers, written by Jeff Britting, archivist of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI).

Britting, who also associate-produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary film Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, has illustrated this 143-page biography with scores of never before published photos of Ayn Rand. Depicted are the people, places and events of her life--her childhood in St. Petersburg, Russia, her family and relatives, her Soviet student years, her early years in immigrant poverty as a movie extra and screenwriter in Hollywood, her lonely years of intellectual struggle, the ecstatic joy of her literary triumphs in her beloved New York and her final years there. The book thoughtfully traces and evokes the literary and philosophical developments of one of the most original minds of the twentieth century.

Published to coincide with the year-long centenary celebrations of Rand's birth, February 2, 1905, Britting's AYN RAND has been called "lively and engaging" (Publishers Weekly), a "concise but telling account" (Library Journal) and "a useful primer for readers wanting to understand Rand's influence" (Kirkus Reviews).

The new biography also alerts scholars to the Ayn Rand Archives, whose unsurpassed collections have enriched a growing number of academic studies, such as Ayn Rand and "Song of Russia" (2005), an analysis of her HUAC testimony in 1947; Essays on Ayn Rand's "We The Living" (2004); and the forthcoming Essays on Ayn Rand's "Anthem" (Spring 2005).

Sales of Ayn Rand's writings currently exceed a half million books per year.  

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Jeff Britting, author and archivist for the Ayn Rand Institute, is available for interviews on this topic.

Contact: larryb@aynrand.org or 800-365-6552 ext. 213.