Meijin (novel)

Meijin (original title: 名人, meijin) is a semi-fictional novel by the Japanese author Kawabata Yasunari . It was first published in book form in 1954. The German translation by Felix Heisel was published in 2015. In Japanese, the title Meijin denotes the highest championship title in a competitive sport. In this case it is the championship title in Go .

content

The novel is based on the farewell game of the reigning Go master Honinbō Shūsai against his young challenger Kitani Minoru in 1938, about which Kawabata had reported in a regular column on behalf of the newspaper Nichinichi Shinbun. The game lasted over five months and was particularly interrupted by Master's three-month hospital stay. Honinbō Shūsai lost to his challenger and died a little over a year later.

The novel describes in detail the course of events and the circumstances of the individual game days. He also presents the competition as a confrontation between the tradition of ancient Japan and modernity, which is expressed in the following quote: “The beauty of Japan and the East had escaped from the Go. Everything had degenerated into science and regulation. ”Pp. 45–46

The historical game

The course of the historical game is shown precisely in diagrams at the end of the novel.

The game can be downloaded in .sgf format.

German edition

• Kawabata Yasunari: meijin . Brett and Stein Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2015, ISBN 978-3-940563-22-4 , pp. 175 (Japanese: 名人 . Translated by Felix Heisel).

Web links

• BiGo Software contains the game in .sgf format, accessed on January 1, 2020