Clarke, Sir Arthur Charles

▪ 2009

      British author

born Dec. 16, 1917, Minehead, Somerset, Eng.

died March 19, 2008, Colombo, Sri Lanka

wrote more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books, but he was best known for such visionary science-fiction novels as Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), Rendezvous with Rama (1973; winner of Nebula and Hugo awards), The Fountains of Paradise (1979; winner of Nebula and Hugo awards), and The Songs of Distant Earth (1986) and for his work on Stanley Kubrick's hugely successful motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film was based on Clarke's short story “The Sentinel” (1951), which Clarke and Kubrick subsequently developed into a novel (1968) published under the same name as the movie. Clarke later wrote three sequels, 2010: Odyssey Two (1982; filmed 1984), 2061: Odyssey Three (1988), and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). As a young man, Clarke worked as a government auditor (1936–41) and joined a small advanced group called the British Interplanetary Society. While serving (1941–46) in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor and technician, he published his first science-fiction stories. In 1945 he wrote the article “Extra-Terrestrial Relays” for Wireless World, in which he envisioned a communications satellite system that would relay radio and television signals throughout the world; this system, which was in operation two decades later, was the first of many scientific advances that Clarke predicted. In 1948 he secured a degree in mathematics and physics from King's College, London. In the 1950s Clarke developed an interest in undersea exploration and moved to Sri Lanka, where he embarked on a second career combining skin diving and photography; he produced a succession of books, the first of which was The Coast of Coral (1956). Collections of his essays and lectures include Voices from the Sky (1965), The View from Serendip (1977), Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography (1984), Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1989), By Space Possessed (1993), and Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! (1999). The Arthur C. Clarke Center (later Institute) for Modern Technologies was established in Sri Lanka in 1984. Clarke was awarded a knighthood in 1998, but it was not officially conferred until 2000.

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