Clarke, Arthur C.

   b. 1917, Minehead

   Writer

   With a background in physics (having taken a degree from King’s College, London), Clarke is best known as a science fiction writer. He has written more than seventy books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey (for whose screenplay he was nominated for an Academy Award) and Rendezvous with Rama. He has lived in Sri Lanka for the past thirty years, where he is Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa, but he has retained his links with Britain (for example, as master of his old school, Richard Huish College in Taunton). He has made many appearances on radio and television, most notably with Walter Cronkite during the Apollo missions. His thirteen-part Mysterious World and Strange Powers television programmes have been seen worldwide.

   See also: fantasy and science fiction; science; science fiction

   MIKE STORRY