author
Ayn Rand
1905–1982
Best known for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, this Russian-born American novelist built stories around fierce individualism and the philosophy she later called Objectivism. Her books became unusually influential far beyond literature, shaping debates about freedom, capitalism, and the role of the individual in society.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg on February 2, 1905, she grew up in Russia and left for the United States in the 1920s. After settling in America, she worked in Hollywood for a time and went on to become a novelist, playwright, and nonfiction writer.
Her breakthrough came with The Fountainhead in 1943, followed by Atlas Shrugged in 1957, two novels that made her famous and helped introduce a wide audience to her ideas. In essays and lectures as well as fiction, she developed Objectivism, a philosophy centered on reason, individual rights, and laissez-faire capitalism.
Rand died in New York City on March 6, 1982, but her work has remained widely read and debated. Readers return to her not only for the drama of her novels, but also for the boldness of the moral and political questions they raise.