MCLC: Mai Jia's espionage thrillers

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MCLC LIST
Mai Jia’s espionage thrillers
Does anyone know who the translator of In the Dark, mentioned in this article, is? The translation seems to have been published already, but neither the Penguin webpage, nor the published e-book indicate a translator--Kirk
Source: China Daily (3/18/16)
'Don't try to understand your fate'
By Yang Yang (China Daily Europe)
Mai Jia, whose novels have won acclaim in China and in the West, talks about inspiration and the coincidence that changed his life. Mai Jia has become one of China's best-known authors among readers in the West thanks to his taut espionage thrillers.
His debut novel, Decoded, was a runaway hit at home and abroad and won him several accolades, leading to comparisons with best-selling writers Dan Brown and John le Carre.
The book has been translated into more than 30 languages, and this month the Chinese author - real name Jiang Benhu, 52 - will visit Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Austria to launch editions in Danish and German. A Hebrew edition will also be released in Israel in May.
Yet this success story is one born from loneliness and no small amount of luck, he tells China Daily.
"I write because of loneliness. I thought that if I write down the loneliness, I would feel better. But the loneliness only gets more intense. Maybe, some people are born to be lonely. Loneliness, like a birthmark, grows together with you. A lonely person of course can create only lonely characters, just like me."
His novels all tell of brilliant loners who must wrestle with riddles and secrets to uncover the truth -or else go mad and die. Yet unlike many spy novels, which feature only the voice of an omnipotent narrator, his works feature postmodern storytelling techniques such as diary entries and interviews that help to explore the characters' inner conflicts.
Decoded, first published in 2002, is the story of Rong Jinzhen, an autistic math prodigy recruited by the secret service to crack two highly advanced codes, Purple and Black. The book was later included in The Economist's top 10 fiction list of 2014.
His follow-up work, In The Dark, is an espionage tale of three parts and is told through the eyes of seven narrators. It won the 2008 Mao Dun Literature Prize, an award sponsored by the Chinese Writers Association, and will be released in English this year by Penguin Classics, which will see Mai Jia follow in the footsteps of Chinese literary giants Lu Xun, Qian Zhongshu and Eileen Chang.
Despite his relatively popularity with foreign audiences, the author says Western readers are largely ignorant of contemporary Chinese literature.
"Many contemporary Chinese writers are inspired by Western literature, but because of cultural differences the things we care about and the way we express ourselves does not interest the West. Also, as a result of being bombarded by Western influences, and having got used to them, we have tried to adapt to their ways, not the other way around."
Apart from being a fan of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer, Jiang appears to draw his greatest inspiration from personal experiences.
Jiang was born in a village not far from Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, in 1964.
When he was young, he says, his father suggested leaving the home his family had lived in for generations because a rival had built a bigger house in front and painted it red, which his father believed was intended to upset their feng shui and bring them bad luck.
Strangely, the family's fortunes did begin to decline, prompting Jiang's grandfather to attempt several methods to "break the curse", including converting to Christianity.
The arrival of more grandsons in the family suggested that had done the trick, the author recalls. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, Christianity was frowned upon in China, and Jiang's father had to try other methods to keep the curse at bay, such as putting stone lions at the front gate. Eventually, in 1996, the family went against Chinese tradition and sold the ancestral house.
Jiang says, for him, the episode opened a door to a world of intrigue and secrets.
And there was more to follow, too. As Jiang's grandfather was a landlord and his father was a Christian, and thus seen as a rightist, his family had a hard time during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). In school, he was bullied not only by students, but also teachers. He recalls feeling isolated and lonely.
When he was 11, he began to keep a diary, and by the time he started to write full-time he says he had 36 volumes. After reading J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, with its theme of teenage angst and alienation, he says he realized he could also write a novel like that - and then the floodgates opened.
Although a mediocre student, he passed his high school examinations and was one of just three students from a class of 54 to enter college. Later, he was enrolled in a military school.
He started writing Decoded in 1991. Until it was finally released 11 years later, he says he was rejected by 17 publishers and had to rewrite it three times because of its sensitive content.
"There is a saying, which is also true for me: Do not try to understand your fate," he says.
Jiang even sees the way Decoded got translated as ultimately a coincidence.
According to Jiang, in 2010, Olivia Milburn, then assistant professor of Chinese literature at Seoul National University, was browsing an airport bookstore in Shanghai after her flight was delayed and came across a Chinese version of the novel. In the blurb it said the story was about a cryptographer, which interested Milburn as her grandfather used to be a code-breaker.
After reading Decoded three times, she first translated the book for her grandfather and was later persuaded by a friend to publish it.
"If her flight was not delayed, or her grandfather was not a code-breaker, then what?" Jiang asks.
A television series based on the novel is now in production. His other works have already been adapted for the screen, including The Message, which was made into a movie in 2009 starring Zhou Xun and Li Bingbing.
yangyangs at chinadaily.com.cn
by denton.2 at osu.edu on March 19, 2016
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