BVBook Verdict
Essential Read

Chess Story

by Stefan Zweig · 1942

Classics · ranked #81 in category

On a transatlantic liner, a mysterious passenger defeats the world chess champion by playing himself in his head — the result of months of solitary confinement by the Gestapo, during which a single book of chess games became his entire mental world. Zweig's final novella, completed days before his death, is about genius, obsession and the particular tortures of the mind turned against itself.

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The verdict

Category
Classics
First published
1942 · 1940s
Author
Stefan Zweig
Standing
Essential Read

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