Bloomsbury USA
Available: 08/30/07
6.12 x 9.25 · 496 pages
978-1-59691-040-9 CDN $29.95 · cl

The Indian Clerk

A Novel

David Leavitt

Academic luminaries such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell play a role in this story of ambition, friendship, war and mathematics, based on a true account set against the backdrop of the Great War.

In January 1913, esteemed mathematician G. H. Hardy received a large envelope covered in Indian stamps. Inside was a letter from Srinivasa Ramanujan, a 23-year-old clerk, requesting Hardy’s assistance with his equations. Hardy was shocked: Ramanujan’s work, from a self-taught boy working in virtual isolation, was as creative and sophisticated as any he’d seen. He arranges for Ramanujan to come to Cambridge, an action that will have serious consequences and will ultimately change the course of mathematics.

Director Scott Rudin (The Hours, A Civil Action) has secured the option for a film version of The Indian Clerk.

DAVID LEAVITT (Florida) is widely considered one of the best writers of contemporary English fiction. His previous novels include The Lost Language of Cranes, England Sleeps, Equal Affections and The Body of Jonah Boyd. His first collection of stories, Family Dancing, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN-Faulkner Award. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He currently teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville.