Isaac Asimov - Biography

Biography

Asimov was born sometime between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (near the modern border with Belarus) to Anna Rachel Berman Asimov and Judah Asimov, a family of Jewish millers. While his exact date of birth is uncertain, Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2.

The family name derives from озимые (ozimiye), a Russian word for winter grains in which his great-grandfather dealt, to which a patronymic suffix was added. His name in Russian was originally Isaak Ozimov (Russian: Исаак Озимов); but he was later known in Russia as Ayz'ek Azimov (Айзек Азимов), a Russian Cyrillic adaptation of the American English pronunciation.

Asimov had two younger siblings; a sister, Marcia (born Manya, June 17, 1922-April 2, 2011), and a brother, Stanley (July 25, 1929-August 16, 1995), who was vice-president of New York Newsday.

His family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. Since his parents always spoke Yiddish and English with him, he never learned Russian. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York City, Asimov taught himself to read at the age of five and remained fluent in Yiddish as well as English. Asimov wrote of his father, "My father, for all his education as an Orthodox Jew, was not Orthodox in his heart", and "he didn't recite the myriad prayers prescribed for every action, and he never made any attempt to teach them to me."

His parents owned a succession of candy stores, and everyone in the family was expected to work in them.