How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?" the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. "Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did," came the answer. "So I took them seriously." Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who -- thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community -- emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize and world acclaim. The inspiration for a major motion picture, Sylvia Nasar's award-winning biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over incredible adversity, and the healing power of love.

在这本感人至深的生动传记中，作者逼真地再现了一个数学天才——纳什的一生，他的生涯被精神分裂症所打断，但是在经受30年毁灭性的精神疾病困扰后，竟奇迹般地康复，并因年轻时在博弈论方面的奠基性工作，获得1994年诺贝尔经济学奖。本书第一版译作《普林斯顿的幽灵：纳什传》，亦使用同一ISBN。