Above are the covers for two more international editions of Andrew Hodges‘s critically-acclaimed ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA. Respectively, Italian, published by Bollati Boringhieri; and Hungarian, published by Gabo. As is clear from the covers, the biography was the inspiration behind the Oscar-winning movie, THE IMITATION GAME.

Here’s the English-language synopsis…

A dramatic portrayal of the life and work of Alan Turing, Britain’s most extraordinary unsung heroes, and the world’s greatest innovators.

Alan Turing was the mathematician whose cipher-cracking transformed the Second World War. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938, as a shy young Cambridge don, he combined brilliant logic with a flair for engineering. In 1940 his machines were breaking the Enigma-enciphered messages of Nazi Germany’s air force. He then headed the penetration of the super-secure U-boat communications. 

But his vision went far beyond this achievement. Before the war he had invented the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer.

Turing’s far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence. However, in 1952 his homosexuality rendered him a criminal and he was subjected to humiliating treatment. In 1954, aged 41, Alan Turing took his own life.

ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA is published in the UK by Vintage Books and in the US by Princeton University Press, and has been published widely in translation.