Anarchy

Viac o knihe

Alexander Grothendieck is one of the most important mathematicians of the twentieth century; in particular, he revolutionized the subject of algebraic geometry. His life contains unique drama. Within the project of this biography in three parts, the first volume deals with his parents and describes his origins, youth, education and student years. His father, Alexander Shapiro (1890-1942) was a Russian-Jewish Anarchist who was already involved in revolts against the Tsarist regime by the age of fifteen, was involved in the Russian Revolution during the First World War, and took part in the Spanish Civil War, before losing his life in Auschwitz. He earned his living as a street photographer. Grothendieck’s mother, Hanka Grothendieck (1900-1957) broke away from bourgeois life as a young woman and worked temporarily as an actress and as a journalist. Grothendieck himself spent his earliest years with his parents in Berlin, and then lived with a foster family in Hamburg. In France he was interned in various camps, but in 1941 he was able to start attending a high school, the Collège Cevenol in Le Chambon sur Lignon, where he passed his Baccalaureate. In 1945 he studied mathematics in Montpellier, and then continued in Paris and in Nancy, where he began his meteoric ascent.