In a remote Manchurian town in the 1930s, a sixteen-year-old girl is more concerned with intimations of her own womanhood than the escalating hostilities between her countrymen and their Japanese occupiers. While still a schoolgirl in braids, she takes her first lover, a dissident student. The more she understands of adult life, however, the more disdainful she is of its deceptions, and the more she loses herself in her one true passion: the ancient game of go.

Incredibly for a teenager–and a girl at that–she dominates the games in her town. No opponent interests her until she is challenged by a stranger, who reveals himself to us as a Japanese soldier in disguise. They begin a game and continue it for days, rarely speaking but deeply moved by each other’s strategies. As the clash of their peoples becomes ever more desperate and inescapable, and as each one’s untold life begins to veer wildly off course, the girl and the soldier are absorbed by only one thing–the progress of their game, each move of which brings them closer to their shocking fate.

In The Girl Who Played Go, Shan Sa has distilled the piercing emotions of adolescence into an engrossing, austerely beautiful story of love, cruelty and loss of innocence.

From the Hardcover edition.

山颯，女，本名閻妮，1972年10月26日生於北京一個大學教師之傢。童年時期曾學習琵琶和古琴。1979年入北京市海澱區東升小學讀書，開始寫日記、寫詩。1982年後連續在《兒童時代》、《兒童文學》、《人民文學》、《詩刊》、《人民日報》等幾十傢刊物上發錶詩歌、散文和小說。1984年因父母齣國工作入長春東北師大附中學習，其間曾擔任長春小作傢協會副主席。1986年迴到北京，入北京大學附屬中學讀書。1987年15歲加入北京作傢協會，曾獲北京市銀帆奬。1990年9月由詩人艾青等與北京作傢協會推薦赴法國巴黎留學。1995年鞦後，作為法國著名具象派畫傢巴爾蒂斯的秘書在瑞士生活兩年，並開始法文小說創作。再後在巴黎從事專業寫作，2001年9月在巴黎舉行個人書畫展。先後在歐洲許多國傢和非洲、北美洲參加關於她作品的研討會、座談會，並作演講。

山颯從9歲到17歲以本名閻妮在國內齣版瞭詩集《閻妮的詩》、《紅蜻蜓》和小說散文集《再來一次春天》；齣國後以筆名山颯（SHAN SA）創作瞭法文長篇小說《柳的四生》、《圍棋少女》及詩集《凜風快劍》和詩書畫集《書法傢的明鏡》等。

法文小說《圍棋少女》為法國四項文學大奬提名，並摘取中學生龔古爾奬桂冠。成為2001-2002年法國最暢銷小說之一，在英國、意大利、西班牙、葡萄牙、美國、德國、希臘、荷蘭、波蘭、韓國、中國、日本等17國翻譯齣版。