Jerry Bauer/Bücher.de
born on June 3, 1930 in Albany, New York
died on September 25, 1999 in Berkeley, California
US-American writer, bestselling author
25th anniversary of her death on September 25, 2024
Biography
In 1981, a woman set about reworking an ancient myth, the legend of King Arthur and his knights. Even though the Mists of Avalon did not become a major media spectacle à la Lord of the Rings, Marion Zimmer Bradley was to have much more of an impact than Tolkien. Practically no other author showcased and clarified the connections between women across all social boundaries as successfully as she did in the “trivial novel” that was never taken particularly seriously in the women's movement.
Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, New York, in 1930. Her mother was a historian, her father a farmer. She wanted to become a teacher, but broke off her studies and married Bradley, a railroad employee 30 years her senior, in 1949. Her son David was born in 1950. She sold her first short story in 1952.
A few years later, she resumed her studies and graduated with a B.A. in 1964. During this time, she divorced Bradley and married the numismatist and author Breen a year later. She gave birth to Patrick (1964) and to Moira (1966).
She continued her studies in Berkeley where she lived in an extended family with her children, her husband, her two younger brothers and her brothers’ wives. In 1990 her second marriage also ended in divorce.
Over the years, she published short stories and novels of various genres. Her Darkover novels had already sold well, but it was the Mists of Avalon that led to international success in 1982. From 1988 until her death, Bradley published Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, which included contributions by an extraordinary number of female authors.
Marion Zimmer Bradley died of a heart attack in 1999. Her life's work was honored in 2000 with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award.
Marion Zimmer Bradley was a woman in search of female identity and female concepts of life who was like her heroines. These interesting and strong women stood together in their fight against male heteronomy and united in their refusal to conform to the pornographic fantasies of men. The women never shyly requested – they proudly demanded – their rights. Priestesses of the old faith, her heroines became role models for generations of women who had reacted with irritation, fear and defensiveness at the word “feminism.”
Marion Zimmer Bradley was once described as a “housewife feminist.” Rather than wrinkle our noses in disdain, we should recognize that the women's movement — still very much alive — could actually benefit from a lot more housewive’s feminism as well as from a lot more saleswomen’s feminism and a lot more nuclear physicists’ feminism. And in all probability the benefits of such feminism would then also be felt well beyond the women’s movement.
Addendum by Ramona Fararo: In the 1960s, Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote several novels in the genre of lesbian pulp fiction that were published under pseudonyms: I Am a Lesbian (1962) as Lee Chapman; Spare Her Heaven (1963) and Knives of Desire (1966) as Morgan Ives; The Strange Women (1962), My Sister, My Love (1963) and Twilight Lovers (1964) as Miriam Gardner; and No Adam for Eve (1966) as John Dexter.
(Text from 2004; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2024.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
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