A hit with Western readers

Mai Jia's novel Decoded has been translated into more than 30 languages and published in different countries.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Later, the turning points in Mai Jia's life seem always mysterious.

Although he was a mediocre student in high school, somehow he passed his examinations, becoming one of just three students from a class of 54 to enter college. Fate then led him to military school, although his score was far lower than the requirement.

Even the translation of Decoded was a coincidence for him.

According to his story, in 2010, after Briton Olivia Milburn, then an assistant professor of Chinese literature at Seoul Natonal University, finished visiting the Shanghai Expo, she strolled to the bookstore at the airport because of a delayed flight and came across the Chinese version of Decoded.

There were hundreds of other books and magazines there. So why Decoded?

It was because of the blurb for the book which said it was "a story about a cryptographer" and Milburn's grandfather used to be a codebreaker.

After reading the book three times, Milburn decided to translate the book for her grandfather. Later, she was persuaded by a friend to publish the translation.