Albert Einstein Speaking
By (Author) R.J. Gadney
Canongate Books
Canongate Books
15th April 2019
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Historical fiction
823.914
Paperback
272
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 17mm
184g
'A literary gem' - Ian McEwan
Princeton. New Jersey.
14th March 1954
'Albert Einstein speaking.'
'Who' asks the girl on the telephone.
'I'm sorry,' she says. 'I have the wrong number.'
'You have the right number,' Albert says.
From a wrong number to a friendship that would impact both their lives, Albert Einstein Speaking begins with the meeting of two very different minds - the world's most respected scientist and a schoolgirl from New Jersey.
Riotous, charming and tender, R.J. Gadney's novel spans almost a century and shines a light on the man behind the myth.
Out of this well-documented life, R.J. Gadney has conjured, with an accomplished novelist's art, a strange and luminous fiction, a literary gem beautifully and cunningly poised between historical truth and the warmly imagined. Its finale is deeply affecting -- IAN McEWAN
An informative and unsettling portrait of a great man and his times * * Guardian * *
Enchanting . . . A model of its kind; concise, funny and vivid * * Times Literary Supplement * *
Engrossing . . . An intriguing addition to the canon of fictionalised biography . . . Impressive * * Evening Standard * *
Curious, engrossing . . . A blend of fiction and fact, written in the urgent present tense, it uses Einstein's life to look at the times he lived through, and vice versa * * iNews * *
R.J. Gadney was a writer, artist and academic. He was born in Cross Hills, Yorkshire in 1941. He studied English, Fine Art and Architecture at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1970 he became a part-time Tutor at the Royal College of Art and later became the youngest Pro-Rector in the history of the College. He lectured at both Oxford and Cambridge universities, Harvard, MIT, at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Moscow. He wrote several screenplays for television, wrote for The Spectator, the London Magazine and the Evening Standard and authored several crime and thriller novels. He died in May 2018.