Michael and Ruben are paralyzed. Michael has myopathy and Ruben has cerebral palsy. Both are orphans. Soviet Union is what's outside their window. Neither one can lift a shovel or a house painter's brush. The state machine knows what to do with this ballast: adjust the clock on their lifespans and send them straight from orphanage to the nursing home - to die. Ruben and Michael are roommates. Ruben, being "healthier", does all the physical work while Michael is all about strategizing and planning ahead. It is difficult, almost impossible, but they have no choice. How does one live and what does one think when there is no future? What is there to hold onto in this world that is killing you slowly and how do you keep those thoughts of death to haunting all the way to the "third floor"? With death staring him squarely in the face, Michael completely immerses himself in mathematics and formal logic, while Ruben, a sweet and naive teenage boy, studies foreign languages and lives vicariously through texts of fiction. "Chess" is a coming-of-age story as told by a grown-up Ruben. Again, the author describes a piece of reality that is difficult to believe and almost impossible to come to terms with. But it is not only a portion of Ruben's life. It is a piece of history of the country that disappeared forever from the map - the USSR.
About the Author: Rubén David González Gallego (1968) was born in Moscow, Soviet Union, with severe cerebral palsy. Gallego was separated from his family at the age of one; he was sent to a state orphanage, because his grandfather, Ignacio Gallego, a Spanish Communist politician (General Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party since 1984), was ashamed of him and told his daughter Aurora Gallego Rodríguez (Ruben's mother) that her son had died. Being an orphan diagnosed with cerebral palsy, he spent his childhood and teenage years in orphanages for disabled children. After a series of dramatic twists of fate and living in many countries on several continents, Ruben chose Ashkelon, Israel where he now lives with his family and diligently works on his writing. "White on Black" and "Chess" became bestsellers in many countries. The book "White and Black" was translated into 25 and won the Booker prize. Ruben's lectures and articles on controversial subjects never fail to attract the public and are widely known.