Russian Silhouettes

“Sosonko was a Russian grandmaster and he emigrated, in 1972, to Holland. As someone who has left it behind, he gives extraordinarily deep, poignant, moving and personal accounts of the great chess players that he knew, people like Bronstein, Tal, Korchnoi, who really were part of a historical era…It’s about the extraordinary intellectual culture of these brilliant young men, who somehow focused on this game…Sosonko says that he is writing, in part, because players are dying or have died. He says that each time, after one of them passed away, he wanted to read about them. ‘Later, I realised that what I wanted to read about them was what I myself knew, which is why I’ve written this book.’ It’s a very good way of putting it. The book is translated from the Russian, but he writes beautifully, better than any other person who has written about the chess of the modern era. An attractive aspect of these two books is that although Sosonko was a very strong player and a grandmaster, they contain no moves at all. There are no games in them. They are purely biographical sketches. So anyone who doesn’t play chess but is interested in learning about the people who play chess – particularly in that period – can develop a very deep understanding of what it was about, the personality, the emotion and the character. There are also wonderful photographs from Sosonko’s private collection.” Read more...

The Best Books About Chess

Dominic Lawson, Journalist