Mandelbrot the Magnificent

By: Liz Ziemska
Location: FIC ZIE
Genre: Historical Fiction-  Holocaust-Maths

"Such a short book to pack such a wallop. How magical is mathematics, how mathematical is magic? I’ll be thinking about this novel for a long time."-Laura


"Liz Ziemska has fashioned a beautiful story about one famous survivor and the magic and mathematics he's brought to the world." --Karen Joy Fowler

Mandelbrot the Magnificent is a stunning, magical pseudo-biography of Benoit Mandelbrot as he flees into deep mathematics to escape the rise of Hitler

Born in the Warsaw ghetto and growing up in France during the rise of Hitler, Benoit Mandelbrot found escape from the cruelties of the world around him through mathematics. Logic sometimes makes monsters, and Mandelbrot began hunting monsters at an early age. Drawn into the infinite promulgations of formulae, he sinks into secret dimensions and unknown wonders.

His gifts do not make his life easier, however. As the Nazis give up the pretense of puppet government in Vichy France, the jealousy of Mandelbrot's classmates leads to denunciation and disaster. The young mathematician must save his family with the secret spaces he's discovered, or his genius will destroy them.

"What a beautiful, perfect gem of a story. This is a gorgeous intersection of history, mathematics, and magical realism; a story of a family, a war, a mathematician, and sacred geometry all rolled into one novella that can be read in about an hour. I recommend this to absolutely anyone."- Megan