On 13 August 2014, at the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul, Maryam Mirzakhani received the prestigious Fields Medal, along with three other laureates, including the French-Brazilian Artur Ávila. At 37, she became the first woman to receive this prize since its creation in 1936. "It struck a chord in me, it touched me deeply," Australian mathematician Nalini Joshi declared on the occasion, moved by this historic event. She added that it was the first time a woman had received this distinction, proving unequivocally that a woman mathematician could be as brilliant as the most remarkable men.
But by the time of the congress, Maryam was already ill. Suffering from breast cancer, she even feared she would not be able to travel to Seoul. With great courage – unbeknownst to the mathematical community – she managed to attend the event, accompanied by her daughter Anahita and her husband, mathematician Jan Vondrák. After a period of remission, in April 2016 her illness worsened. She then underwent experimental treatment in New York. Never complaining, continuing to work and care for her daughter, she fought on with determination, all the while preserving her natural joy, tinged with humor and even whimsy.
Anton Zorich, a specialist in her work, speaking in the film devoted to her, Les secrets de la surface (The Secrets of the Surface), says of her fight against cancer: "I was certain until the very last moment that she would make it. No one else could have. But she could." The illness would nevertheless claim her a few months later, on 14 July 2017, though she never stopped pursuing her research with perseverance and enthusiasm. The day before she died, she wrote on Facebook: "The more mathematics I do, the happier I am."
