5 October 2010
Chess News and Chess Trivia Blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010
Hi Everyone,
We recently found this very interesting novel – Chess Story by Austrian master Stefan Zweig. Also, titled ‘The Royal Game,’ the manuscript was mailed to American publishers by the author only a few days before he committed suicide in Brazilian exile in 1942.
The story goes that travellers on a ship on its way from New York to Buenos Aires find the world chess champion among them. The champion comes across as an arrogant person who does not wish to make friends. Of course he agrees to play chess with fellow travellers.
Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise the group pitted against the champion and a twist happens in the story. How this stranger ‘advisor’ came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig’s story.
The book has been translated in English also and covers plenty of thoughtful insights and suspense. Check it out this week.
This novella was the inspiration of the 1960 Gerd Oswald film Brainwashed, originally titled Die Schachnovelle, as well as for the 1980 Czechoslovakian film ‘The Royal Game’.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s
Also see her personal blog at
