Mai Jia

Rong Jinzhen es un chico fuera de lo común: educado por un extranjero en la China de los años veinte, vive una infancia solitaria, sumergido en su propio mundo. Pero pronto desarrolla un don que lo hace extraordinario. Rong puede ver lo que nadie más ve, sus conocimientos van más allá de lo que una persona corriente puede entender. Convertido en un genio de las matemáticas conocido en todo el país, Rong es obligado a abandonar su carrera académica cuando es reclutado por el departamento de criptografía del servicio secreto chino.
Atrapado en las grietas de un sistema terrorífico, se convertirá en el mayor descifrador de códigos del país, pero deberá enfrentarse a un reto que nadie ha podido superar hasta el momento, poniendo a prueba los límites de la razón y la cordura. ¿Dónde acaba la genialidad y empieza la locura?… (altro)

A unique and beautifully written (and translated) novel about a Chinese mathematician who is recruited against his will to join a secret government agency assigned to break the signal codes of foreign governments. He is eventually assigned a code so devious in design it drives him insane. The storytelling of the novel was very skillful and the author consistenly created suspense between chapters which made the book difficult to put down. The storytelling was unique and meditative. The theme of how there is a very fine line between brilliance and madness is one that has been told before but the novel still seemed very fresh. I was reminded of the true life story of John Nash who was described in the non-fiction book "A beautiful Mind" and the highly sanitized movie version that was loosely based on it. Like Nash, the protagonist of the book is so completely enthralled by the deep abstraction of mathematics that his grasp of reality is lost.… (altro)