'Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game. 'The rediscovery of this extraordinary writer could well be on a par with last year's refinding of the long-lost Stoner, by John Williams, and which similarly could pluck his name out of a dusty obscurity.' - Simon Winchester, Telegraph But in agreeing to take on Czentovic, what price will Dr B ultimately pay?Ī moving portrait of one man's madness, A Chess Story is a searing examination of the power of the mind and the evil it can do.

But there is another passenger with a passion for chess: Dr B, previously driven to insanity during Nazi imprisonment by the chess games in his imagination.

Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by allowing others to challenge him in the game, before beating each of them and taking their money. One of the most perfectly gripping novellas from a master of the form, Stefan Zweig.Ĭhess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. At 23, he received a doctorate in philosophy.An epic chess match on a transatlantic liner unearths a story of persecution and obsession. The cosmopolitan atmosphere of imperial Vienna favored in young Zweig a curiosity of the wider world, which quickly turned into bulimia, pushing him towards all theater premieres, all new titles not yet critically acclaimed, all new forms of culture. Being the son of a wealthy Jewish businessman, he was able to pursue his education with complete freedom, guided only by his taste which inclined him to literature, philosophy and history. Stefan Zweig was born on Novemin Vienna, Austria. This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work’s unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig’s story. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change.

They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological. Amazon | Goodreads Publisher’s DescriptionĬhess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig’s final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942.

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