Daily Archives: 03.12.2006

An interview with the Go Master, the 5-th part

As far as I’m concerned a book by Miura Yasuyuki, “Go, an Asian Paradigm for Business Strategy” was published under your direction (Sophia Publisher). How many books have been sold and have you got any results of this project?

The book by Miura “Go, an Asian Paradigm for Business Strategy” is a peculiar book. This is a book that does not only explain the table-game Go but tells us about the role of this game in historical and economical area and culture of two civilizations – Western and Eastern ones.
While working on the edition during a year, we came to a certain decisions that channeled our conception correctly. The first question we asked ourselves then was: for whom should this book be published? For laymen or for elite readers? The answer wasn’t in favor of laymen. So, 2500 copies of the book were published. That is why it is an expensive edition and is made unusually. And it is very pleasant that nearly the whole Russian edition has already been sold. We really feel the results. We have managed to increase the number of people who treat Go not only as a table game. This book helped us strengthen such attitude towards Go in modern Russian society. For those who haven’t read this book (by the way, I advise to purchase it before the whole edition is sold) I would say that the author describes Go very existentially. Miura Yasuyuki is a person with a great life experience. He is a person who messages to his readers a deep evaluation of everything around him. We read the book chapters that despite diagrams and technical descriptions do not move you to a Go board only, do not turn you into a Go stone. With the author we sail the Pacific Ocean during the war, take part in building of luxurious Japanese hotels in the USA, in their investment. Together with Miura Yasuyuki we spend time in tea-houses. Playing Go we get in touch with the world fate. We enjoy the Master’s dignity, his internal calm. This book moves us to a very interesting level, the level of a person who is really responsible of something; at the level of a person who lives in the stream of the world history; who is able to do or not to do; to the level of a person who knows the act and absence of act. Such person can think, compare, rise above people’s fuss, above the fuss of business, above the fuss of stones and a board.
In short words, the project “Go, an Asian Paradigm for Business Strategy” has succeeded and I can see the results.

Not so long ago you edited a book on Go for laymen (“To Think and to Win: Go for the Beginners” Olymp edition, 2006) and series of education materials. Are you going to have them translated into other languages?

No, I don’t think that it is necessary, though one of them has been translated into English by Saratov branch of the Go Federation. We don’t set a task of translating of this very series as for us it is transitional. The real books that the Russian School of Strategy will be ready to offer to laymen and elite readers, Eastern and Western readers, are not written yet.

To be continued