Set in Japanese occupied Manchuria in the 1930s, The Girl Who Played Go is harsher, more shocking than Balzac, a timeless tale of love and war reflected in the age-old game of go. In the Place of a Thousand Winds, snow falls as a sixteen-year-old Chinese girl beats all-comers at the game of go. One of her opponents is a young Japanese officer of the occupying power, rigidly militaristic, imbued with the imperial ethic, yet intrigued by this young opponent who plays like a man. Their encounters are like the game itself, restrained, subtle, surprisingly fierce. But as their two stories unfold, and the Chinese try to ignore their oppressors, the Japanese army moves inexorably through their huge land, in the vanguard of a greater war, leaving blood and destruction in its wake. Shan Sa's novel has a wonderful directness and deceptive simplicity that catches the reader by the throat, and makes the cruelty and tragedy of its outcome all the more shocking. An exquisite and unusual novel with strange twists on the Romeo and Juliet theme, The Girl Who Played Go is already a bestseller in France.
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The Girl Who Played Go is a sparse, delicately constructed, slowly paced novel, but no less moving for that. -- The Big Issue, April 14-20 2003
A dramatic tale of love set against the backdrop of wartorn 1930's China. Haunting and powerful. -- B Magazine May edition
Sa's language is graceful and trance-like: her fights are a whirling choreography......her emotions richly yet precisely expressed.....a moving third novel. -- T2, The Times 14th May.
A dramatic tale of love set against the backdrop of wartorn 1930's China. Haunting and powerful. -- B Magazine May edition
Sa's language is graceful and trance-like: her fights are a whirling choreography......her emotions richly yet precisely expressed.....a moving third novel. -- T2, The Times 14th May.
About the Author
Shan Sa was born in 1972 in Beijing. She left China for France in 1990, studied in Paris and worked for two years for the painter Balthus. Her two previous novels were awarded the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and the Prix Cazes.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By J. A. Evans
Format:Hardcover
This is a really striking novel. I originally bought it because of my interest in the game of Go. However this is largely a side issue to the novel itself - although a game of Go between the two characters frames and defines their whole life. Written simultaneously from the first person viewpoint of the two main characters - a manchurian girl and a japanese soldier in the Japanese/Manchurian occupation before the Second War war it tells the story of their thoughts, lives, reactions to the world around them and the brewing war between Japan and China. Their relationships and loves, which eventually, yet obliquely bring them together. The end is gobsmacking - and not at all what you are expecting.
Marvellous book, well worth your money!
Marvellous book, well worth your money!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Film Buff
Format:Hardcover
This unique novel is set during war time between China and Japan, and we are living inside the mind of the two progagonists, a young Chinese woman and a Japanese soldier, who meet while playing 'go' (a kind of Asian chess game) in the city square.
The writing is powerful, poetic and disturbing, and the story is gripping enough to make you want to read to the last page. There are some very vivid and violent scenes, so this is not a novel for the faint-hearted. The translation from the French holds amazingly well (not something common in all works translated) and at times it's hard to believe this work wasn't originally written in English--well done Adriana Hunter. Both characters tell their stories from the first view point, and my only criticism is that there isn't much difference in the voices (they both seem to have the same gift for describing details), and at times, particularly towards the beginning, I couldn't tell immediately which chapter belonged to whom.
However, it certainly a memorable novel, and I strongly recommend it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
The key message of the book, which struck me instantenously, is Confucius's sentence : "... a man who knows humanity will never agree to preserve his life at the expense of that humanity ..." This is Shan Sa's extraordinary declaration of love to mankind.
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The Girl Who Played Go
I read this about 5 years ago, with great pleasure. Set in Manchuria in the 30s, it documents the early life of a western educated Chinese girl, contrasting eastern and western... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. Alexander Eve
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very satisying.
This is an unusual read - but interesting.
It's a story set in China during the 30s - a sort of love story centred around the ancient game of 'Go'. Read more
It's a story set in China during the 30s - a sort of love story centred around the ancient game of 'Go'. Read more
Published on 25 July 2010 by FAMOUS NAME
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