Mai Jia

The phenomenal #1 Chinese bestseller, with over 4 million copies sold. This is a searing exploration of what makes a hero: a literary masterpiece, available in the English language for the very first time. The boy grows up in a small village in south China listening to stories about the Colonel: some say he was a legendary army doctor during the war, some say he was a traitor to the Party, still others say he is a wicked sex machine. The stories are bawdy and mesmerizing, always larger than life. Yet in reality, the Colonel is just a middle-aged man who loves his cat. And why on earth does everyone call him 'the Eunuch'? From these disparate sources, the boy tries to piece together who the Colonel really is, just as he himself grows up in a rapidly changing China. It is not until many years later, when the boy also becomes a middle-aged man, that he would look back and finally solve the puzzle.

The phenomenal #1 Chinese bestseller, with over 4 million copies sold. This is a searing exploration of what makes a hero: a literary masterpiece, available in the English language for the very first time. The boy grows up in a small village in south China listening to stories about the Colonel: some say he was a legendary army doctor during the war, some say he was a traitor to the Party, still others say he is a wicked sex machine. The stories are bawdy and mesmerizing, always larger than life. Yet in reality, the Colonel is just a middle-aged man who loves his cat. And why on earth does everyone call him 'the Eunuch'? From these disparate sources, the boy tries to piece together who the Colonel really is, just as he himself grows up in a rapidly changing China. It is not until many years later, when the boy also becomes a middle-aged man, that he would look back and finally solve the puzzle.

Denna bok berättar historien om en individ som navigerar och kämpar genom tidsepokerna. Inom dess mystiska berättelser finns livets gripande smak, omfattande både den vardagliga grymhet som föds och den vänlighet som tiden ger.

Five code-breakers gather in the mountains of China. Which one is a double agent? A World War Two spy thriller from the most translated Chinese novelist of our time.

A dazzling literary thriller set in Japan-occupied China from the most translated Chinese novelist of our time. China, 1941. At the height of the Second World War, Japan rules over China. In Hangzhou, a puppet government propped up by the Japanese wages an underground war against the Communist resistance. Late one night, five intelligence officers, employed as codebreakers by the regime, are escorted to an isolated mansion outside the city. The secret police are certain that one of them is a communist spy. None of them is leaving until the traitor is unmasked. It should be a straightforward case of sifting truth from lies. But as each codebreaker spins a story that proves their innocence, what really happened is called into question again and again. Praise for Mai Jia: 'A spy novel on a grand scale in which nothing is as it seems' The Times on The Message 'Jia's playful mix of tradecraft, puzzle-solving and human folly brings an original twist to the spy fiction canon' Sunday Times on The Message 'A page-turner with a gripping plot, otherworldy aura, and flamboyant detail' New York Times on Decoded 'A mix of spy thriller, historical saga and mathematical puzzle that coheres into a powerful whole' Financial Times on Decoded 'A literary superstar' Telegraph

Salaliittojen, nerojen, vallankumouksellisten ja hirvittävien moraalisten valintojen maailmassa ihmiset uhraavat kaiken salaisuuksille - kunnes ne lopulta tuhoavat heidät. Romaani sukeltaa syvälle kiinalaisen tiedusteluyksikön synkkään ytimeen. Kirjan päähenkilöt ovat poikkeuksellisen kuulonsa vuoksi viestitiedustelijaksi värvätty sokea maalaismies, lahjakas mutta erikoinen nuori matemaatikko, unissaan viholliskoodeja murtava kryptoanalyysin veteraani sekä vietnamilaisen sotilaan ruumis - tarinan kertoja. Mai Jia (s. 1964) on Kiinan palkituimpia ja luetuimpia nykykirjailijoita, jonka teoksia on Kiinassa myyty miljoonia kappaleita. Vuosia Kiinan tiedustelupalvelussa työskennellyt Mai Jia, oikealta nimeltään Jiang Benhu, on kirjoittanut neljä romaania, joista on myös tehty tv- ja elokuvasovituksia. Pimeä voima toi Mai Jialle arvostetun kiinalaisen Mao Dun -kirjallisuuspalkinnon vuonna 2008. Teos on itsenäinen jatko-osa romaanille Koodinmurtaja, joka julkaistiin suomeksi 2017 (Aula & Co).

"Mai plays adroitly with literary genre and crafts a story of Borgesian subtlety and complexity."--The New YorkerRong 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: a top-secret Chinese intelligence agency whose sole purpose is counterespionage and code-breaking. 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. The first novel to be published in English by one of China's greatest contemporary writers, Decoded is a riveting tale of obsession and a profound exploration of the mind of an inspired genius, one that discovers in cryptography the key to the human heart.