One of the world's most celebrated cosmologists presents her breakthrough explanation of our origins in the multiverse.'Fascinating' ROGER PENROSE, Nobel laureate'What if our universe is but an infinitesimal fragment of reality? What would this "multiverse" be like? There is no better guide to the bizarre, and sometimes paradoxical, cosmic super-realm than Laura Mersini-Houghton' Paul Davies, author of What's Eating the Universe?In recent years, Laura Mersini-Houghton's ground-breaking theory, spectacularly vindicated with observational evidence, has turned the multiverse from philosophical speculation to one of the most compelling and credible explanations of our universe's origins. In Before the Big Bang, she interweaves the story of how she arrived at this theory with her journey from communist Albania, where she was born and brought up, to the West, showing how her unconventional path helped her to challenge orthodoxies and become one of the most courageous thinkers on the world stage of theoretical physics.'A riveting tour of the cosmos from the one of the brightest minds in astrophysics' Washington Post'A fascinating and unusual hybrid of pop science and memoir' 5*, Stephen Poole, Daily Telegraph'One of the world's most renowned cosmologists offers insights into the majestic world of the quantum multiverse' Stephon Alexander, author of Fear of a Black Universe*A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022*