Best-selling author visits campus

By Sarah McDonough
Cardinal Staff

Sylvia Nasar, best-selling author of “A Beautiful Mind,” spoke at Saint Mary’s University on Oct. 30.
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Nasar discussed her book and answered questions the audience had regarding Paranoid Schizophrenia and John Nash, the person whom her book and the movie are based on.

After Nasar landed a job with the New York Times, she became interested in Nash’s life story.

Nash, a 1994 Nobel Prize winner, was nominated for the award because of the work he did at Princeton University. Nash is a genius. He was a graduate student at age 20 and then received his doctorate from Princeton at the age of 22. His life was nothing short of extraordinary. Through a late onset of Schizophrenia (diagnosed at age 30), as well as his self-claimed recovery from this psychotic disorder, Nash’s life seemed almost unbelievable- which is why Nasar wanted to write more than an article. She felt his life story would benefit millions, and it did.

Many regard Nasar’s book on Nash’s life as inspiring. She was thrilled at the fact that her book seemed to have “struck a universal cord.” Nasar said, “You only get stories like these once in a lifetime.”