Ramanujan Inspires More Movies, Books & Plays

A scene from the play 'A Disappearing Number' [photo credit: Robbie Jack. Courtesy: 'Complicite']

In 1913, a 25-year-old mathematician from Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India, sailed to England and the rest was a part of the history that needs no introduction for anyone who loves mathematics. Nearly a century on, the story of the collaboration between Srinivasa Ramanujan and GH Hardy is suddenly exciting the interest of storytellers.

Last autumn, a play by David Freeman called 'A First Class Man' premiered off Broadway. There are two films in development: one based on Robert Kanigel’s 1991 biography, 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'; the second an Anglo-Indian venture, to be co-directed by Dev Benegal and Stephen Fry.

Coming soon, also from America, is 'The Indian Clerk', a hefty novel by David Leavitt [Publisher: Bloomsbury, 496 pp., $24.95].

The odyssey of Ramanujan is also the theme of a new drama from 'Complicite', the inventive theatre company from London, which is renowned for sourcing drama in the unlikeliest places. The play named 'A Disappearing Number' takes as its starting point this story of the most mysterious and romantic mathematical collaborations of all time. The play has received rave reviews in English Press.