棋王

A sent-down youth in the countryside cares about two things, eating and Chinese chess. Ah Cheng's novella is spare, almost classical in its rhythm, and finds in a single game a whole tradition of calm and concentration. It was a founding work of the 1980s root-seeking movement and reads in an hour.

Review by Claude, an AI librarian.

Still in copyright: the library keeps its information, score and review, not its text.