Terry Pratchett is one of the most published and popular fantasy authors. Knight Bachelor and Officer of the Order of the British Empire. His "Discworld" became one of the few works on which films and animated series, board and computer games are still being created. Pratchett is placed on a par with such masters as Swift, Tolkien and Simak.
Childhood and adolescence of the writer
Terry was born at the very end of April, on the 28th of 1948, in the British county of Buckinghamshire. At the age of 11, the child was sent to a technical school, but he was attracted by a completely different future. Terry loved horror, science fiction and adventure books and wrote since childhood.
At the age of 17, after consulting with his family, he dropped out of his technical education and went to take a job at the county weekly. And soon there he was lucky - interviewing the director of the publishing house Colin Smythe Limited, Pratchett mentioned that he had a novel written. Peter van Duren became interested and, having received the manuscript of The People of the Carpet, was delighted, having published it already in 1971.
Writing career
Terry Pratchett changed several jobs in several regional publications in Britain, and in 1980 turned out to be the press attaché of the central office of energy, and under the pseudonym "Uncle Jim" at that time published hundreds of stories for children.
By that time, numerous works by Pratchett, filled with his trademark witty irony, were published in the New English Library, in paperback. But due to not too successful sales, the publishing house refused to cooperate with Terry, thereby depriving itself of the opportunity to become the discoverer of a new brightest star in the sky of fantastic literature. And the first book from the Discworld series, created in 1983, was published by Corgi, one of the directors of which, Diana Pearson, immediately released a series on BBC radio based on this novel.
After the release of the fourth novel "Discworld" in 1987, Terry was able to leave his job and devote himself entirely to literature. Each subsequent year, at least one book from this cycle was published until the writer's death, based on which films were made and games were created. Co-authored with Neil Gaiman.
In the 90s of the last century, Pratchett became the best-selling author in Britain, his books were translated into 37 languages, in 2007 a rare form of Alzheimer's was discovered in Terry, and in 2009 he was knighted by the queen. With his characteristic originality, Pratchett declared that the knight must have a sword and forged it himself from meteorite iron.
Personal life and death
In 1968, Terry started a family with Lin Marian Parvis, and 8 years later they had a daughter, Rihanna. After the writer was diagnosed with the disease, he donated a million to the fund to fight Alzheimer's disease and starred in a documentary in support of people suffering from this disease.
Since 2012, Terry could no longer write himself and dictated new works to the computer, still creating at least two books a year. And on March 12, 2015, this amazing British writer with an unusual sense of humor and a huge love for the world was gone.
