Overview

Stefan Zweig's classic novella of obsession, madness and chess In 1941 a cruise ship is heading to Buenos Aires, and on board a group of eager passengers challenge the reigning world chess champion to a match. At first they lose pitifully, until a kind stranger aids by whispering instructions to them - he is a masterful chess player, and as they play, the game itself draws the stranger closer and closer to its secrets. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of the cost of obsession, set in a Central Europe traumatized by the psychological influence of Nazism.

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9780241305164

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His great achievement in short form * The Times * Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game -- Economist A new favourite writer of mine -- Wes Anderson 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 * Stefan Zweig was a late and magnificent bloom from the hothouse of fin de siecle Vienna * The Wall Street Journal * One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig's stories -- Edmund de Waal A brilliant writer * New York Times *

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

Author Information

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.

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