- New Arrivals
Fiction- Historical FictionCrime & ThrillersMysteryScience-FictionFantasyPoetryRomanceChildren’s BooksYoung Adult
- Biographies & MemoirsHistoryCurrent AffairsTech & ScienceBusinessSelf-DevelopmentTravelThe ArtsFood & WineReligion & SpiritualitySportsHumor
Children’s BooksListsBlogGift CardsMy ListsGames- About & Help
- About Tertulia
- Membership & Co-Ownership
- Shipping & Delivery
- Orders & Payments
- Contact Support
- Send App Feedback
- Follow us
- Download the app
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Decoded
"Mai plays adroitly with literary genre and crafts a story of Borgesian subtlety and complexity."--The New Yorker
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: 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.
Book Details
- Publisher: Picador USA
- Publish Date: Mar 3rd, 2015
- Pages: 320
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.10in - 5.40in - 0.90in - 0.65lb
- EAN: 9781250062352
- Categories: • Literary• Thrillers - Espionage• Disability
About the Author
Jia, Mai: - Mai Jia was born in 1964 and spent many years in the Chinese intelligence services. His first novel in English, Decoded, was published by Penguin Classics in 2002, and has been translated into over twenty languages. Jia's novels have sold over 10 million copies and he is a winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, the highest literary honour in China.
Praise for this book
"A gripping plot [and] otherworldly aura . . . Spectacular." --The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
"Mai plays adroitly with literary genre and crafts a story of Borgesian subtlety and complexity." --The New Yorker "Entirely original . . . A mix of spy thriller, historical saga, and mathematical puzzle that somehow coheres into a powerful whole." --Financial Times (London) "There is a determination to unsettle the reader; an uneasiness about settling on one focused point of view . . . [Decoded's] deviations take the novel out of the realms of the hard-edged thriller into somewhere more surreal and unexpected." --Tash Aw, The Telegraph (London) "Decoded stands out among Chinese novels for its pace, liveliness, and the sheer novelty of the tale it tells. It grips from the first page . . . It is an absolute joy to read." --The Economist "Decoded is a subtle and complex exploration of cryptography, politics, dreams and their significance . . . There is much of interest in this book, from the strange, superstitious beginning to the gradual decline of the Rong family as the twentieth century progresses . . . But, in the end, it is the complexity of the characters that is Decoded's enduring pleasure." --The Times Literary Supplement "Between the thrills of pulp fiction and those novels which come to be considered classics, there are boundaries and lines which, for many writers, are difficult to cross, and may take a lifetime (if ever) to realize. Mai Jia's achievement is that he has overcome that barrier with steady and assured strides. The footprints he has left behind form an ingenious, secretive literary treasure map." --Wong Kar-wai, director of The Grandmaster "When I say that [Decoded] is excellent, I am referring both to its remarkable literary qualities and to the fact that it demands to be read in a single sitting." --Alai, Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning author of Red Poppies "The illogical nature of destiny, the brilliance and fragility of genius, and circumstances that bind people together irrevocably as they drift through the darkness of the night all form part of Mai Jia's strange and mysterious novel." --Beijing Evening News