Aboard a ship bound for Buenos Aires, a narrator learns that the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic is a passenger, an arrogant, nearly illiterate man with a gift only for chess. A rich traveler pays to play him, and Czentovic wins easily, until a stranger, Dr B, intervenes and drives the champion into a draw. Dr B tells of his imprisonment by the Gestapo in a hotel room, where he was interrogated and isolated, and of how a chess manual he stole saved and also damaged his mind. Stefan Zweig finished the novella in Brazil in 1942, shortly before ending his life.
It suits readers who like tense, concise fiction about obsession, sanity and the effects of totalitarianism. It is short, and chess knowledge is unnecessary.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2013
- Publisher
- Le Livre de Poche
- Language
- FR
