Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most impor rant unsolved mathematical problem of all time.Some of his Cambridge colleagues dismiss the letter as a hoax, but Hardy is convinced that the Indian clerk who wrote it, Srinivasa Ramanujan, deserves to be taken seriously.

On a January morning in 1915, G. H. Hardyeccentric, charismatic, and, at thirty-seven, already considered the greatest British mathematician of his age--receives in the mail a mysterious envelope cov ered 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 impor rant unsolved mathematical problem of all time.Some of his Cambridge colleagues dismiss the letter as a hoax, but Hardy is convinced that the Indian clerk who wrote it, Srinivasa Ramanujan, 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,Hardy 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 the lives ot 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 unknownand unschooled--mathematical genius, and populated with 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 spellbinding story about the fragility of human connection and oui need to find order in the world. Richly textured and emotionally charged, this is a literary masterpiece from one of today's most celebrated authors.