In the frame narrative, a first-person narrator, an Austrian emigrant, happens be on the same passenger steamer from New York to Buenos Aires as the reigning chess world champion, Mirko Czentovic. Schachnovelle is structured by a frame narrative, a technique typical for novellas, which Zweig adopted in several of his prose writings. In line with common definitions of the literary form of the novella, to which Zweig refers to explicitly in the title, Zweig composed a short and concise narration of a single, striking and unique event. The novella is undoubtedly one of Zweig’s most widely received works of fiction in contemporary Europe. In Schachnovelle Zweig accuses the brutality and terror of the fascist regime. It is, on the contrary, set against the background of the Third Reich. In contrast to many of his novellas, Schachnovelle is not set in a pre-Republican imperial Austrian context. Stefan Zweig’s Schachnovelle, the last work of fiction he completed in his Brazilian exile, was published in 1942 after the author’s death.
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