Maniac

Maniac is a work of fiction based on real events, featuring John von Neumann, a Hungarian-born American mathematician who laid the foundations of computing.

It concludes with a gripping account of the historic duel between AlphaGo and the undisputed champion at the time, Lee Sedol.

Von Neumann was involved in the Manhattan Project and was considered one of the most brilliant researchers of the 20th century, capable of anticipating many of the fundamental questions of the 21st century.

Maniac can be read as an account of the founding myths of modern technology, but written with the pace of a thriller.

Labatut is a writer for whom "literature is a work of the spirit and not of the brain". That is why, in Maniac, the irrationality of mysticism and the rationality of science converge.

"We will be able to predict all stable processes. We will be able to control all unstable processes!"
John von Neumann