Marie Curie and her Daughters

Manya Sklodowska and her sister Bronya were two of four clever children, raised by their physicist father in Poland at a time when girls were forbidden to go to university. Despite the difficulty, the girls saved up and Bronya went to Paris to study, followed by Manya, who took the name of Marie when she arrived in France.

Studying hard at the Sorbonne, Marie attained her Master’s degree in Physics in two years and her Masters in Maths the year after. Marrying her husband Pierre, a fellow scientist, Marie started working on the discovery of uranium that would make her the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize.

Yet, when Pierre died in a freak accident, Marie was left as the single mother of two daughters, Irene and Eve. Irene would grow up to be a scientist, just like Marie, but Eve was a wonderful pianist and adored stories, growing up to work for UNICEF and to work for the French government during World War Two. Irene and her husband Frederic later also won a Nobel Prize for their work with radium, and Marie established the Radium Institute, becoming more famous than her daughters would believe.

The story of a family of remarkable women, Marie Curie and her Daughters is a truly fascinating and inspiring read.