The Colonel and the Eunuch

Mai Jia ia a bestselling author - this is his first new novel in eight years and his most ambitious work to date.

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.Dylan Levi King is a writer and Chinese translator based in Tokyo.

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
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
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
The novel's disgraced Colonel is emblematic of our parents' generation. The Colonel and the Eunuch is a cello sonata for our fathers