Chess Story

Book summary

On a liner sailing from New York to Buenos Aires travels Mirko Czentovic, the world chess champion, a boatman's son who knows almost nothing beyond the board. The narrator persuades a few passengers to buy a game from him, which the champion wins easily. A stranger, Dr B., starts prompting moves that turn the play, then describes the months the Gestapo held him alone in a Vienna hotel room. A stolen volume of recorded games became his only occupation there. Zweig's last story examines isolation, obsession, and what a mind does to itself.