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First Kyu - The Novel
    Keywords: Culture & History, Books & Publications

First Kyu: A Novel, copyright 1999 by Dr. Sung-Hwa Hong
Illustrations by Du-Ri Han
Published by Good Move Press (which I think is the same as [ext] Samarkand)
ISBN 0-9644796-9-9

The back cover says this is "a compelling, insightful and haunting tale of love, sacrifice, the search for excellence, and Go -- the world's oldest game." I think that's pretty accurate.

This novel is lots of bittersweet fun for Go players. It follows a teen player as he comes of age pursuing a professional Go career. As an occidental, I was fascinated by the scenes of Asian "Go culture" (including bangneki gambling -- now I understand what those guys at the Korean Go club were doing :-) and the backdrop of 1960s Korean society.

Though the story is well-written and very entertaining in its own right, Go players will appreciate some bonuses. Part 1 includes the kifu of the famous Blood Vomiting Game. In Part 2, most of the chapters are titled after Go proverbs; several include Go diagrams that seem to illustrate the proverbs.

Interestingly, based on a [ext] Google search I did, at least two American colleges are using First Kyu in courses about Asian culture and Go.


Does anybody know someplace where you can buy this book? Amazon and ABEbooks don't have it, and neither do any of the top Google matches.

Jk: As of August 1, 2003, First Kyu is back in print and [ext] available at [ext] Samarkand.



This is a copy of the living page "First Kyu - The Novel" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.