The Chess Master

The Chess Masteris a story of escape and salvation, and the clue for both is chess. The protagonist, Wang Yisheng, undergoes a gradual transformation from "chess fool" to "chess master" -- from an alienated young man obsessed with the material needs of life to a spiritually enlightened transmitter of the Chinese tradition. By reversing the pervasive anti-traditional trend in modern Chinese literature and eschewing any overt influence from Western literature, Ah Cheng has created in the The Chess Mastera radically new fiction that is both thoroughly modern and deeply imbued with the Chinese tradition.