Decoded
A Novel
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Descripción editorial
One of China's bestselling novels, an unusual literary thriller that takes us deep into the world of code breaking
In his gripping debut novel, Mai Jia reveals the mysterious world of Unit 701, a top-secret Chinese intelligence agency whose sole purpose is counterespionage and code breaking.
Rong Jinzhen, an autistic math genius with a past shrouded in myth, is forced to abandon his academic pursuits when he is recruited into Unit 701. As China's greatest cryptographer, Rong discovers that the mastermind behind the maddeningly difficult Purple Code is his former teacher and best friend, who is now working for China's enemy—but this is only the first of many betrayals.
Brilliantly combining the mystery and tension of a spy thriller with the psychological nuance of an intimate character study and the magical qualities of a Chinese fable, Decoded discovers in cryptography the key to the human heart. Both a riveting mystery and a metaphysical examination of the mind of an inspired genius, it is the first novel to be published in English by one of China's greatest and most popular contemporary writers.
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A bestseller in his native China, Mai's first novel translated into English opens with the introduction of the Rong family, as told in Chinese folklore: aboard a ferry in 1873, Rong Zilai leaves China to study dream interpretation in order to save his grandmother from her nightmares. After her tragic passing, Zilai decides on another course. On his return, he finds that his grandmother has willed him her silver, and with this inheritance, he opens Lillie's Academy of Mathematics, the predecessor of N University, around which the remainder of the narrative is based. We follow Zilai as he ages, and are introduced to generations of the Rong family, including Abacus Head, so named for her mathematical genius and her enormous skull; her son Killer Head, named for his even larger skull (which killed his mother during childbirth); and, finally, the protagonist of the novel, Rong Jinzhen, a descendent of Zilai's. As the novel traces Jinzhen's path through N University and the military where he works as a code breaker, attempting to crack BLACK and PURPLE, the most sophisticated codes invented the reader is steeped in the history of Chinese intelligence and mathematics. Mai's careful attention to pacing and the folklore-inspired narration make for a fascinating story, neatly interwoven with complex mathematical theory.
