La Joueuse de Go
French Novel by Shan Sa, published by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle in 2001. (ISBN 2 246 61611 5)
The story is set in Manchuria in 1936/37, during the Japanese invasion. The heroes are a Manchu girl and a Japanese officer, who meet over a game of Go. Their game becomes the backdrop for the rest of the story up to the very proper denouement.
Other than this, the Go references are rather thin. If one doesn't expect from this book a deep insight into the Manchurian Go culture, it is very pleasant to read.
The novel has been translated into Dutch and German.
--- Confused
Italian too.
The novel is sort of well written, but is nothing special as originality goes, and do not expect Go to play a significant role but a mean to allow the protagonists to meet. The end is commonplace.
An enjoyable two-hours reading and useless book, if you ask me...
--- DJ
And English (Chatto & Windus, 2003).
--- Grauniad
ilan: Here is my review http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/joueuse.html