Chess Story—also known as The Royal Game—is Stefan Zweig’s final and haunting work, written in exile in Brazil and sent to his American publisher just days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only fiction in which Zweig confronts Nazism directly, doing so in his signature way: through an intense exploration of the human psyche.
Aboard a ship traveling from New York to Buenos Aires, passengers discover they are sharing the voyage with the reigning world chess champion, a brilliant but cold and contemptuous figure. When a group of travelers challenge him to a match, they are decisively humiliated. Their luck changes only when an enigmatic fellow passenger intervenes with unexpected advice. The origins of this man’s remarkable mastery of chess—and the devastating personal cost at which it was acquired—form the emotional and psychological core of Zweig’s unforgettable tale.