The Master of Go is a novel by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata, first published in serial form in 1951. Titled Meijin in its original Japanese, Kawabata considered it his finest work, although it is in contrast with his other works. It is a semi-fictional chronicle of the lengthy 1938 "retirement game" of Go by the respected master Honinbo Shūsai, against the up-and-coming player Minoru Kitani . It was the last game of the master Shūsai's career, a lengthy struggle which took almost six months to complete; he lost to his younger challenger, to die a little over a year... thereafter. Kawabata had actually reported on the match for the Mainichi newspaper chain, and some sections of the book are reworked versions of his original newspaper columns. The Japanese word used to describe the book is shōsetsu, which may be translated as "chronicle-novel", but it is mostly true to life. The book has many layers of meaning, more so than Kawabata's other works.
more