Mat

by Ronan Bennett, Danièle Mazingarbe (Translator)

1914, Saint-Pétersbourg. Alors que le grand tournoi international d'échecs va débuter, dans les rues, les prémices de la révolution se font sentir. Otto Spethmann, psychanalyste de renom, est bien loin de ces préoccupations politiques : il mène une vie apparemment sans histoire avec sa fille, quelques amis et ses patients. Mais lorsque la police secrète vient l'interroger sur l'un d'entre eux, un jeune poète retrouvé assassiné, tout bascule, et les cadavres s'accumulent. Spethmann se retrouve pris dans une partie d'échecs à l'issue incertaine, où il va devoir anticiper la stratégie d'adversaires dont il ignore tout.

352 pages, Paperback

Published March 7, 2013

About the author

Ronan Bennett is a novelist and screenwriter who was born and brought up in Northern Ireland and now lives in London. His third novel, The Catastrophist, was nominated for the Whibread award in 1998. Havoc, in Its Third Year (2004) was listed for the Booker prize. Havoc has been adapted into a motion picture to be released later in 2012. His latest novel is Zugzwang. His television drama Top Boy will be broadcast by Channel 4 in November 2011.

In addition to Havoc and Top Boy, Ronan has an excessive amount of work writing and creating for both television and the screen.

Long before Ronan ever thought of becoming a writer, he did a brief stint in prison for crimes perpetrated by the Irish Republican Army, crimes he was wrongly accused for.