A young woman, in the present, goes into a building in an eastern European city, climbs up the stairs, and walks into a waiting room where a dozen other people, with briefcases or sheaves of documents, are waiting patiently.
Shortly afterwards, she is requested to go into another room, a large office, where she meets Albert Einstein himself. She says to him, “Since you said that time and space don’t exist, I decided to take your word for it.” He replies: “You did very well. Sometimes it works.”
So begins a strange encounter between a curious young woman and Einstein — fifty years after the latter’s death.
This entertaining story is a wonderful introduction to the intellectual world of the scientist who changed our perception of the universe. Jean-Claude Carrière’s dialogue is lively and witty, and he has brilliantly illustrated Einstein’s paradoxes in this work of popular science.


Jean-Claude Carrière, a writer, playwright and screenwriter, is the author of many best-selling books, such as Le Dictionnaire amoureux de l’Inde. Editions Odile Jacob previously published his Entretiens sur la multitude du monde, co-authored with Thibault Damour.