1. Barbara Joan Branden was a Canadian-American writer, editor, and lecturer, known for her relationship and subsequent break with novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
10 Facts About Barbara Branden
1. 2.
Nathaniel and Barbara Branden became founding members of an Objectivist movement that sought to advance Rand's ideas.
3.
In 1954, Nathaniel Branden began a secret romantic affair with Rand with the reluctant permission of both spouses.
4.
When it was written, Rand considered Barbara Branden to be one of the most important proponents of Objectivism.
5.
In 1968, when Rand terminated her association with Nathaniel Branden after she discovered that he had become involved with actress Patrecia Scott more than four years earlier, she likewise disassociated herself from Barbara Branden for keeping this fact from her.
6.
In 1986, Barbara Branden published another biography of Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand.
7.
The book, written after Rand's death in 1982, caused a rift among Rand's followers because it not only stated that Rand and Nathaniel Barbara Branden had been lovers, but that Rand had broken with them when she learned of his affair with Scott.
8.
Barbara Branden contributed the lead essay "Ayn Rand: The Reluctant Feminist" to the anthology Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, wherein she argued that the way Rand lived her life made it a feminist manifesto, even as Rand had disagreements with feminism.
9.
Barbara Branden was estranged from her cousin Leonard Peikoff, Rand's chosen intellectual and legal heir after Rand's break with Nathaniel Branden.
10.
Barbara Branden died of a lung infection in Los Angeles on December 11,2013.