Decoded

December 16, 2013
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.

Starred review from December 15, 2013
Yan Shi, an aging Chinese code-cracker, views his life labor as a sort of madness that pulls you close to insanity and to genius. Readers skate the line separating insanity from genius in Mai Jia's riveting tale of cryptographic warfare. At the center of Mai Jia's taut novel, the mathematical genius Rong Jinzhen is spirited away as a young man to China's secretive Unit 701, an elite cadre of code masters. There Jinzhen encounters the hero who broke WWII Japanese ciphers, now a helpless, chess-playing lunatic. Such is the peril Jinzhen faces as he launches his own lonely assault on PURPLE, the fiendish brainchild of his own former professor. In a narrative challenging readers to do their own decoding of its ruptures and inversions, readers see the brilliant protagonist survive daunting psychological dangers as he unravels PURPLE, inspired by a dream about the Russian chemist Mendeleyev. But when PURPLE's sinister sibling, BLACK, emerges as the new foe, Jinzhen ventures forth again, veering toward mental breakdown when he loses a research notebook. A denouement at once heartbreaking and thought-provoking leaves readers pondering the collective sanity of a world shrouding knowledge in enigmas. Gifted translators bring English-speaking readers a Chinese literary treasure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2014

Published over a decade ago, prize-winning Chinese author Mai's first work of fiction has finally been translated into English. Here, readers meet Rong Jinzhen, a cryptographer for Chinese intelligence with a tragic upbringing. Mai presents the story in five segments, starting with the Rong family in 1873, then showing how mathematical excellence was seen throughout the generations until Jinzhen's story is fully realized in 2002. Jinzhen is an autistic math genius forcibly taken from his studies, and his journey moves from absolute brilliance in breaking code while working for Unit 701 to his ultimate mental decline. VERDICT Not a typical spy story, though those who enjoy the genre may be interested, this literary work offers both deft character study and a clear-eyed look at intelligence work, with intrigue and ample mathematical references. Mai's experience working in the Chinese intelligence service may have contributed to the story's realism. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/13.]--Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013

In this first significant translation of multi-award-winning Chinese author Mai, autistic math genius Rong Jinzhen is forced to work for a hush-hush intelligence agency dedicated to counterespionage and code breaking and is surprised to find that the author of the formidable Purple Code is a former friend and teacher now working for the enemy.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.