In the book of Academician B. Pontecorvo, a student of Fermi, and a candidate of physical mathematics. Sciences V. Pokrovsky tells about the life and work of one of the outstanding scientists of the XX century Enrico Fermi. The figure of such a universal physicist as Fermi was is amazing and rare for our time, when narrow specialization has become typical in scientific research. The book traces the formation of Fermi's personality, tells about the circumstances under which he came to his most important discoveries, provides a number of little-known facts from his life. The organic part of the book is the memoirs of Fermi's students and friends, Nobel Prize winners Bethe, Segre and Young, famous physicists Amaldi, Anderson, Razetti, Chandrasekhar and others. Several popular articles by E. Fermi are placed as an appendix to the book. The book is written in a lively, non-specialist language and is of interest to the widest circle of readers.