Phillip K. Dick

Phillip K. Dick, born in Chicago in 1928, was an enigmatic writer whose life was as intriguing as the stories he wrote. His novels and short stories reflected his spiritual and philosophical outlook on reality. He focused primarily on ordinary people trapped in fictional and complex situations. “They are the size of a mosquito, they cannot do anything, but they possess a certain grandeur,” the author said about his characters.

His life was greatly influenced by the death of his twin sister Jane in infancy. He was also deeply affected when in 1974, he had a vision he referred to as “apocalyptic”. That, and many other visions that followed (variously attributed to a chemical imbalance of the brain, schizophrenia and drug use) manifested in his work. He became obsessed with theology and the mystical aspects of his meeting with a supreme being he called VALIS.

Dick died in 1982 from cardiac failure following a stroke, only months before the release of Ridley Scott’s blockbuster film Blade Runner, based on Dick’s short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Finally, after his death, he achieved recognition and a host of films based on his work followed, including Total Recall and Spielberg smash hit, Minority Report.

In A Scanner Darkly, an animated film based on his work, Dick explores his personal paranoias (he believed the FBI was out to get him) and the effects of drugs on society. The novel portrays a paranoic society where citizens are hired by the Government to spy on their friends and neighbours in the name of national security. A part of the 1960s Californian sub-culture and a Communist-sympathiser, Dick loathed authority. Writing science fiction stories was his only way of rebelling against it.