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THE INDIAN CLERK: A NOVEL
By: David Leavitt
Bloomsbury Publishing
September 2007
On Sale: September 4, 2007
496 pages
ISBN: 1596910402
EAN: 9781596910409
Hardcover
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Fiction
The brilliant new novel from one of our most respected writersβhis most ambitious and accessible to date. On a January morning in 1913, G. H. Hardyβeccentric, charismatic and, at thirty-seven, already considered the greatest British mathematician of his ageβreceives in the mail a mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most important unsolved mathematical problem of all time. Some of his Cambridge colleagues dismiss the letter as a hoax, but Hardy becomes convinced that the Indian clerk who has written itβSrinivasa Ramanujanβ deserves to be taken seriously. Aided by his collaborator, Littlewood, and a young don named Neville who is about to depart for Madras with his wife, Alice, he determines to learn more about the mysterious Ramanujan and, if possible, persuade him to come to Cambridge. It is a decision that will profoundly affect not only his own life, and that of his friends, but the entire history of mathematics. Based on the remarkable true story of the strange and ultimately tragic relationship between an esteemed British mathematician and an unknownβand unschooledβmathematical genius, and populated with such luminaries such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk takes this extraordinary slice of history and transforms it into an emotional and spell-binding story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world.
 Media BuzzTell Me More - June 26, 2008
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