A new Pushkin Collection edition of this classic Zweig novella; an epic chess match on a transatlantic liner unearths a story of persecution and obsession.
On an ocean liner heading for Buenos Aires, the chess world champion is playing, and winning, against a group of fellow passengers, until a stranger steps forward from the watching crowds. How can this man, who claims not to have moved a piece in twenty years, challenge the Grand Master? As the game unfolds, so, gradually, does the truth of the stranger's dark and damaged past-an unnerving tale of tyranny, imprisonment and obsession.
