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The Oppenheimer Enigma
A Biographer’s Long Journey Chasing the Father of the Atomic Bomb
Speakers
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been the film of 2023, garnering commercial success and critical acclaim, most recently by winning five Golden Globes awards. The film is inspired by the landmark biography of Oppenheimer authored by Kai Bird and Martin Shewin, published in 2005.
In his talk at BIC, Kai Bird will trace the arduous and difficult journey of writing his Oppenheimer biography, describing both the research and the writing that went into the making of the book. He will also speak about the challenges in making a feature film based on a work of historical scholarship.
The event will be chaired by Ramachandra Guha, who will introduce Kai Bird, as well as moderate the discussion with the audience after Kai’s talk.
A Q&A with the audience will follow.
Speakers
Kai Bird
Kai Bird is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian who has published biographies of John J. McCloy, McGeorge Bundy, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Robert Ames, and, most recently, of Jimmy Carter He has also authored a memoir about his childhood in the Middle East. He is the Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha’s books include a pioneering social history of sport, a landmark history of independent India, and an authoritative two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, both volumes of which were chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. His awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the Fukuoka Prize for contributions to Asian culture. He is the recipient of an honorary doctorate in the humanities from Yale University. He lives in Bengaluru.
