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75TH ANNIVERSARY OF AYN RAND LANDING IN AMERICA

    January 31, 2000

     MARINA DEL REY, CA-On a snowy February evening in 1926, 21-year-old Ayn Rand, who would go on to write the classic novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, received a belated birthday gift-her first view of the New York skyline, a sight she had anxiously awaited since escaping her home in Soviet Russia.

    "That February evening can be described as Ayn Rand's 'second' birthday-the evening that she was reborn a free woman in America," said Jeff Britting, archivist of the Ayn Rand Archive. "And her story is a real success story-from rags to riches in the classic American sense."

    Born on Feb. 2, 1905, she lived through the early days of the Soviet state, which she detested. After immigrating to America, she made her way to Hollywood-where she relentlessly pursued her writing career.

    Her first novel, We the Living (1936), which is set in Soviet Russia, drew heavily on her own experiences. Her second novel, Anthem (1938), is a futuristic story set in a society where the word "I" has disappeared.

    It wasn't until the publication of The Fountainhead (1943) that Rand began to wield widespread cultural influence. The story of an iconoclastic architect who won't compromise his integrity, The Fountainhead became a publishing phenomenon as a word-of-mouth bestseller.

    Atlas Shrugged, Rand's masterwork, was published in 1957. The novel chronicles what happens when the men of ability go on strike. It has sold millions of copies and was named, in a 1991 Book of the Month Club and Library of Congress survey, the second most influential book in Americans' lives (after the Bible). Nearly 19 years after her death, in March 1982, all of her fiction and non-fiction books remain in print, selling more than 400,000 copies per year.

    Rand devoted her later years to formulating her philosophy of Objectivism, which advocates reason, individual rights, and capitalism.

    Ayn Rand Archive archivist Jeff Britting is available for interviews.

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