Benjamín Labatut

Benjamín Labatut (b. Rotterdam, 1980) is a Chilean writer known for books that blend scientific history and literary invention.

Author of When We Ceased to Understand the World (orig. Un verdor terrible) and of shorter works translated/published in multiple languages; his writing often explores scientists such as Fritz Haber, Werner Heisenberg and Alexander Grothendieck and themes of knowledge, uncertainty and madness.

Ermes's review situates La pietra della follia as a short extension of Labatut's work mapping science and its dark implications. The text discusses themes of uncertainty, collapse of grand narratives, and the uneasy triumph of scientific authority. Labatut is read as an author who mixes fact and invention to probe madness, knowledge, and modern anxiety.

For:Readers interested in literary nonfiction that explores science, philosophy and modern anxiety.