Júlio César de Mello e Souza

He was well known in Brazil and abroad for his books on recreational mathematics, most of them published under the pen names of Malba Tahan and Breno de Alencar Bianco.

Júlio César's most popular books, including The Man Who Counted, are collections of mathematical problems, puzzles, curiosities, and embedded in tales inspired by the Arabian Nights.

He thoroughly researched his subject matters — not only the mathematics, but also the history, geography, and culture of the Islamic Empire which was the backdrop and connecting thread of his books.

Yet Júlio César's travels outside Brazil were limited to short visits to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Lisbon: he never set foot in the deserts and cities which he so vividly described in his books.

Júlio César was born in Rio de Janeiro but spent most of his childhood in Queluz, a small rural town in the State of São Paulo.

[citation needed] His career as a writer began while he was still in high school, when one of his classmates offered him a brand-new pen and a postage stamp from Chile in exchange for an essay on the theme of "Hope", the homework for the next day.

According to his memoirs, Júlio was called late at night by other anxious students, and by the next morning he had provided four different essays on "Hope", at 400 réis a piece.

His brother João Batista recalls that Júlio's tales were full of superfluous characters with bizarre names like "Mardukbarian" or "Protocholóski".

[citation needed] In 1918, at the age of 23, Júlio César presented five of his tales to the editor of the newspaper O Imparcial, where he worked, but his boss did not even look at them.

Undaunted, Júlio picked up the manuscripts and brought them back a few days later, this time pretending that they were translations of the work of a certain "R. S. Slade," supposedly the rage in New York City.

In 1925, he sold the idea of a series of tales on Oriental themes to Irineu Marinho, editor of the newspaper A Noite (which would later become a huge Brazilian media conglomerate, the Organizações Globo).

In all his works Júlio defended the use of games as teaching aids, and the replacement of chalk-and-blackboard lectures by "mathematics laboratories" where students could engage in creative activities, self-study, and object manipulation — a proposal that was seen as heretical at the time.

While his methods and style charmed all his students, he had the opposition of many of his colleagues, who found his approach of connecting mathematics to everyday life as demeaning.