Ayn Rand (/an rnd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, Russian: ; February 2[O.S. January 1905 March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 19351936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful in America, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.
