Robert Kanigel is the author of six other books, including The Man Who Knew Infinity. After 13 years as professor of science writing at MIT, he has returned to full-time writing in Baltimore.

It is a magic, tragic ugly-duckling fable that Robert Kanigel tells in The Man Who Knew Infinity... In it, a greatly gifted man is born to a culture that doesn't understand what the man is about. Still, his talent blossoms until news of it spreads to the other side of the world, where he is eventually summoned by the masters of his skill. The man goes among them and performs his magic. Skepticism gives way to wonder. But away from home, the man grows lonely and ill. He returns to his birthplace, only to die.

Robert Kanigel is the author of six other books, including The Man Who Knew Infinity. After 13 years as professor of science writing at MIT, he has returned to full-time writing in Baltimore.

It is a magic, tragic ugly-duckling fable that Robert Kanigel tells in The Man Who Knew Infinity... In it, a greatly gifted man is born to a culture that doesn't understand what the man is about. Still, his talent blossoms until news of it spreads to the other side of the world, where he is eventually summoned by the masters of his skill. The man goes among them and performs his magic. Skepticism gives way to wonder. But away from home, the man grows lonely and ill. He returns to his birthplace, only to die.

Robert Kanigel is the author of six other books, including The Man Who Knew Infinity. After 13 years as professor of science writing at MIT, he has returned to full-time writing in Baltimore.

It is a magic, tragic ugly-duckling fable that Robert Kanigel tells in The Man Who Knew Infinity... In it, a greatly gifted man is born to a culture that doesn't understand what the man is about. Still, his talent blossoms until news of it spreads to the other side of the world, where he is eventually summoned by the masters of his skill. The man goes among them and performs his magic. Skepticism gives way to wonder. But away from home, the man grows lonely and ill. He returns to his birthplace, only to die.