Terry Pratchett OBE
Fantasy fiction author, satirist and distinguished supporter of Humanism
Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and began his career as a local journalist before becoming a Press Officer and then in 1987 a full-time writer.
His first fantasy novel was
The Carpet People
in 1971, and in 1983
The Colour of Magic
was the first in his humorous
Discworld
series.
His books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide and several of his novels have been adapted as plays. They appeal to both adults and children, and, while always highly entertaining, they often have a serious or satirical element.
In many he deals with philosophical questions and arguments – he is interested in ethics, religion, and consciousness. For example,
his children’s book
Truckers
,
about little people who live in a department store, contains an element of satire on organised religion, and the Carnegie Medal winning
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
is the story of
an intelligent talking cat and a group of intelligent talking rats who discover philosophy. As they acquire language and learn to read, they develop consciences, become aware of consciousness, begin to think about the big questions - death, ethics, what are we, and why we are here, and they exchange conflict and hostility for compassion and sympathy. Pratchett has described Maurice as “quite a serious book” and wrote to the BHA “I hope it doesn’t escape readers of Maurice that the rats develop a moral society before speculating that there’s a Big Rat who created everything.” When he won the Carnegie Medal in 2001, he said: “Far more beguiling to me than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive costume jewellery into a volcano is the possibility that peace between nations can be maintained by careful diplomacy.”
He is also interested in
science, and with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen has written three books using the Discworld series to illustrate popular science topics:
The Science of Discworld
(1999);
The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
(2002);
The Science of Discworld III:
Darwin
's Watch
(2005.
In July 2001 he was one of the signatories to a letter published in
The Independent
which urged the Government to reconsider its support for the expansion of maintained religious schools.
In 1998 he was made an OBE for his services to literature. He is also a supporter of the
Orang-Utan Foundation.
See also
His Wikipedia entry
His interview in the CD-ROM
Living without God
(
buy it here
)
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