Diego Berrueta

(This is a reprint of the original post)

Yesterday, I reached the end of I. Asimov, the autobiography (well, one of them) of Isaac Asimov (the book title contains an obvious reference to a very well-known novel by Asimov. Can you tell which one without following this link?). As the subtitle implies, it is more a memoir than a raw biography.

Everybody knows that Asimov was an extremely prolific author (he wrote or edited about 500 books!). Many may link his name with science-fiction, and they aren't wrong, because he was one of the brightest figures of the genre. However, we cultivated almost every genre, from history to science, from mistery to humor. I've read a number of books by Asimov, most of them from the Sci-Fi genre: the fascinating Foundation series, the quite good Robot series and a myriad of short stories. But I was particularly impressed by his guide to science, which I read in 2004.

This autobiography, which is also a good book, was written in 1990, near the end of his live (Asimov died in 1992). He describes his illness... but he omits an important fact. In 2002, his wife revealed that his illness was a consecuence of AIDS, contracted due to a bad blood transfusion. They decided to hide this fact because of fear to prejudice.