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Mai Jia's first novel in English, Decoded, was published by Penguin Classics in 2002, and has been translated into over twenty languages. His novels have sold over 10 million copies and Mai Jia has won the Mao Dun Literature Prize, the highest literary honour in China. The Message was first published in 2007 and has sold over a million copies in China. Mai Jia was born in 1964 and spent many years in the Chinese intelligence services.
Reading this book is akin to summiting a perilous peak, trekking upwards until a faint path reveals itself, then looking back on the expansive view below... Mai Jia takes many risks, occasionally writing himself into what seem to be impossible situations, but he always dances away from disaster. We fear for him, but then we are forced to admire his skill even more -- Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature The novel's disgraced Colonel is emblematic of our parents' generation. The Colonel and the Eunuch is a cello sonata for our fathers -- Su Tong, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize Mai Jia's masterpiece; it's both perfectly representative of his work, while also being completely different. I think the term 'hypnagogia' – that transitional state between dreams and reality – might be the best one to describe the book -- Wong Kar-wai With its story of great changes across history, its melding of deceitful battlefields with every day life, and its plots and characters that are by turns startling and touching, The Colonel and the Eunuch leads us to an understanding of the inevitability and frustration of existence. In the end, the hardest code to decipher turns out to be life itself. * David Der-Wei Wang * Uses the mythic adventures of its protagonist to connect the dots of China's 20th century history... In this latest work, Mai Jia, noted for his spy novels, leaves his comfort zone to explore the mysteries of human nature... [A] testament to the author's ambition and commitment to his artform * Southern Metropolis Daily *
