Brazil's other passion: Malba Tahan and The man who counted (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Brazil is better known for footballers than mathematicians, but amid the media feeding frenzy linked to the start of the World Cup next month it would be wrong to ignore the country's National Day of Mathematics on Tuesday. Author Alex Bellos tells the story of the man it honours.

Rio de Janeiro, 1925, and Brazil is on the up. Workers are building the city's landmark Christ the Redeemer statue. Samba, a new music, is becoming a national craze and the country's main newspaper, A Noite, introduces a new star writer with a story on the front page.

Malba Tahan - or, to give him his full name, Ali Iezid Izz-Edim Ibn Salim Hank Malba Tahan - was a Middle Eastern author who wrote in Arabic and was translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian market, readers were told. His short pieces were morality tales written in the style of the Arabian Nights, which soon began to touch on mathematical themes.

They were a huge success, and in 1932 Malba Tahan published what would became one of the most successful books ever written in Brazil - O Homem que Calculava - The Man Who Counted.

The book is set in the 13th Century, and begins: "In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful! I was on the Baghdad road, returning at my camel's slow pace from an excursion to the famous city of Samarra, on the banks of the Tigris, when I saw a modestly dressed traveller, sitting on a rock, who looked like he was recuperating from a voyage."
***
more: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27254747

[hunter]

1. "Reality" can be a delightfully shifty experience.

Recommended.