Nikola Tesla: The Man of Lightning

A night in 1899 on a high plain in Colorado Springs. A tall, thin man stands before a wooden mast topped with a copper ball and shouts to his assistant: "Close the switch!" A very long bolt of lightning leaps from the ball, and then the whole town goes dark.

This is a novel, not a biography. It starts with a child born on a stormy night in the village of Smiljan, follows him as a student whose professor tells him his idea is impossible, and then as the man whose electricity travels from Niagara Falls to a city about 40 kilometres away. The events, dates and names are real, and the story is told in scenes and dialogue as if you were watching it.

The science is explained with pictures from daily life: a river that flows back and forth like waves on the shore, a merry-go-round that children push in turn, water in a narrow hose. No equations and no difficult terms. A final section tells you clearly what is real and what is imagined in every chapter.

The book is written in Arabic.