Mitza Maric faces prejudice due to her disability, her gender and her Serbian nationality. Luckily she has self belief and a supportive father so is able to follow her dream of attending Zurich University to study physics. One of her fellow students catches her eye: Albert Einstein…
The Other Einstein is an historical novel beginning in the 1890s as Mitza heads to university. It is a fictional account based on the lives and relationship of the Einsteins.
Mitza has been dealt a tough hand in life but has the determination and passion to succeed in life. She overcomes adversity but can she let love stand in her way as well? I found myself so angry at Albert for the way he increasingly marginalised her, and then angry with her for tolerating his behaviour. I always think it is a sign of good characterisation when you feel strongly about them!
This book is fiction and offers the perspective that Mitza was actually a better scientist than her husband and he took her work and passed it off as his own. I thought that the depiction of both Mitza and Albert was fascinating, based on evidence whilst also presenting the characters in a way that suits the intended narrative. Class, gender and race all combined to restrict Mitza’s opportunities and I felt that this was an accurate representation of opinions of the time.
The Other Einstein is an interesting perspective on two incredible scientists.
The Other Einstein book blurb:
In the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein’s enormous shadow. This is the story of Einstein’s wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight.
Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
