Chess
A Novel
1st Edition
Published on 26. January 2006
96 pages
978-0-14-196506-2 (ISBN)
Description
'... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!'
A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of genius.
A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of genius.
Reviews / Votes
A brilliant writer * New York Times * One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig's stories -- Edmund de Waal Stefan Zweig was a late and magnificent bloom from the hothouse of fin de siecle Vienna * The Wall Street Journal * Zweig is one of the masters of the short story and novella, and by 'one of the masters' I mean that he's up there with Maupassant, Chekhov, James, Poe, or indeed anyone you care to name -- Nick Lezard * Guardian * A new favourite writer of mine -- Wes Anderson Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game -- Economist His great achievement in short form * The Times *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
1,26 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-14-196506-2 (9780141965062)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2006
Penguin Classics
€27.42
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Persons
Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna to a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. Recognition as a writer came early for Zweig; by the age of forty, he had already won literary fame. In 1934, with Nazism entrenched, Zweig left Austria for England, and became a British citizen in 1940. In 1941 he and his second wife went to Brazil, where they committed suicide. Zweig's best-known works of fiction are Beware of Pity (1939) and Chess (1942), but his most outstanding accomplishments were his many biographies, which were based on psychological interpretation.
