Henri Korn is a neurobiologist, a world-renowned specialist in neuronal transmission of information. He is Honorary Professor at the Institut Pasteur, Directeur Emeritus of Research at Inserm, and a member of the Academy des Sciences.


Memoir, intellectual and spiritual autobiography, this book charts the life of an exceptional man of knowledge, whose life was marked by the horrors of the occupation and deportation, but also driven by enthusiasm and scientific discoveries.
Henri Korn is one of the world’s recognised authorities on neuronal communication, a key factor in the process of learning and memory.
In this flamboyantly-written book he tells us what led him to become the man and the neurobiologist that he is: the son of a communist father and artist mother, he spent a childhood overshadowed by antisemitism in Vichy France before embarking on pioneering work in medicine and neurobiology, specialising in information transmission via the nervous system, then engaging in politics beside François Mitterrand…
He shows how personal life and scientific research are closely entwined. In the brain, as in our personal journeys, nothing is predetermined: unpredictability is part of the weave of our lives, as it is in our brain function.


An outstanding account by a scientist with strong intellectual and spiritual convictions.
A work that allows us to understand how a scientific career develops.
An original collection of memoirs, mixing scientific thought, personal memories and political engagement, bringing to life the period of occupied France.
A powerful book, written with stunning sincerity.