The Master of Go

Yasunari Kawabata · 1899–1972 · Japan

Originally Meijin (Japanese) · translated by Edward Seidensticker

Why it matters

A real 1938 championship match, which Kawabata covered as a reporter, becomes an elegy: the aging Master's ritual formality against a brisk modern challenger's clock-watching efficiency. A whole vanishing Japan compressed into one board game.

At a glance

Restrained, reportorial prose whose meaning depends on tracking a slow game's stakes.