Benjamín Labatut

Benjamín Labatut defies the confinements of categorization, creating his own, new hybrid genre that has charmed critics and readers alike. Crossing the boundaries between science and fiction, between the brilliant and the absurd, between the aspirational dreams and dystopic nightmares of scientific progress, Labatut’s writing forms a literary blend that invokes awe and occasional terror, blurring the line between reality and fantasy.

Shrouded in mystery, hard to reach, and translated in many languages, Labatut has already earned wide international acclaim for his work, while his book "When We Cease to Understand the World" stood out amongst the 2021 nominations for the International Booker Prize. With his 2023 book “The MANIAC,” Labatut tells the story of John von Neumann, the most intelligent human being of the 20th century, delving into the dark foundations and myths of our modern world and the nascent era of AI.

He was born in Rotterdam in 1980, grew up in The Hague, and now lives and writes in Santiago, Chile. While generally avoiding the limelight, in this rare opportunity, Labatut will appear in Athens, at the Onassis Stegi, in spring 2025, to talk to us about his exciting work.

Benjamín Labatut’s books are available in Greek, published by DOMA | books in Athens.

“Benjamín Labatut is the new editorial phenomenon in Latin America.”

-El País

“Captivating and unclassifiable, at once a historical novel and a philosophical foray.”

-The Washington Post

“As compact and potent as a capsule of cyanide.”

-Ruth Franklin, The New Yorker

“A dystopian nonfiction novel set not in the future but in the present.”

-John Banville, The Guardian

“One of those literary unicorns.”

-Physics Today

• In June 2022, on the occasion of his participation in the Louisiana Literature Festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Benjamín Labatut spoke with Peter Adolphsen.
• What does it mean to build worlds? For Labatut, fiction is a tool we have developed as humans to understand the world, our reality, and what happens to us. “Anything that comes out of a writer is fiction. Fiction [...] is not the making up of a story; it doesn’t have to do with imagination. [...] It is part of perception. There is a large part of fiction in perception itself; it is not just stories. It goes on all the time; we just don’t notice that it is going on,” says Labatut.
• “The MANIAC” speaks of nightmares borne out by “reason’s mad dreams,” telling the story of the new deity created by humans—one that now threatens to replace them. In “When We Cease to Understand the World,” science becomes literature, the essay turns into fiction, and biography morphs into fantasy. What is this threatening shadow lurking behind the light of scientific knowledge? From H. P. Lovecraft to Philip K. Dick, and from David Hilbert to Kurt Gödel and chaos theory, in “The Stone of Madness,” Benjamín Labatut explores the return of irrationality’s demons in a world that seems to have become increasingly incomprehensible. His writing process is unique because it is deeply research-driven: “I don’t worry much about the shapes of the stories; it is all about research; I try to find things. To me, finding some other person’s phrase is more important than coming up with it myself. It is the part that I enjoy. In that sense, writing has become more akin to walking and picking stuff above the ground.”
• For Labatut, the story of a book emerges through the act of research. He doesn’t merely search for facts; he seeks the form of the story, something shaped by what he uncovers. Fiction enters his narratives at the seams, where facts are scarce or fragmented: lesser-known figures or people who left no trace. He stated that his writing process “is more akin to looking at the world than to thinking about it.”
• Fascination, he believes, is the key to a compelling story and the ultimate goal of any writer. Labatut explains that, beyond being the “key” to all of this, fascination is also what writing should aspire to at its best. He adds, “The Latin root of the word [fascination] comes from ‘fascinus,’ which means the male sexual organ. To be aroused is something art does in a very special way. It is an excitement; it is not just entertainment. It should touch you very deeply.”
• Dreams, delirium, and excess run through Benjamín Labatut’s books, and their convergence with reality seems like a thin line. “What I’m fascinated by is delirium, by reason’s mad dreams, and the excesses of thought. I feel called toward the contradictions that at once torture and enlighten us. I am interested in chaos, senselessness, irrationality, randomness, and infinity.”
• In a July 2024 interview with “The Guardian,” Labatut emphasized mystery and the allure of the unsolved. “In my books, I like to invite people to go down again, to go back into darkness to enjoy this rare pleasure of being in the presence of something that, as [French mathematician Alexandre] Grothendieck said, is enormous and very subtle; that is, quiet but, you know, raging.”
• Someone once wrote to Labatut to say that his books had caused him panic attacks, to which he replied [in the same interview with “The Guardian”], “Books should give you a panic attack—or at least point you in that direction.”

• Santiago Municipal Literature Award (2013)
• Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize (2021)
• Shortlisted for the National Book Award (2021)
• Nominated for the Prix Femina étranger (2024)