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Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a translator and later as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and enjoying literary fame. His stories and novellas were collected in 1934. In the same year, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in bed in an apparent double suicide.
Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game. Never mind that you may have never moved a pawn to King four; the story will grip you. Economist The novella is one of Zweig's most horrifying investigations into monomania and at the same time a parable of the dangers inherent in engaging with Nazism. -- Ruth Franklin London Review of Books A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig; the games our minds play. -- Candia McWilliam Glasgow Herald
