Before we come to Arrabal here is a brief reaction to the
Hou Yifan interview by India's second highest ranked player (and number
ten in the world women's rankings), Harkika Dronavalli:
India's second highest ranked female player (and World women’s online
blitz champion) GM Harika Dronavalli, said she could empathise with Yifan,
whom she has met across the chessboard on several occasions. “It would
be nice for us women to have a World championship cycle like that of the
men, but I think it would be difficult for FIDE to find sponsors for that,”
the World No. 10 told The Hindu over phone from Hyderabad on Saturday.
“But I am a bit disappointed by her decision. Women’s chess
will be less competitive without her. I would like to win the World championship
in which Yifan is a contender.”
For that to happen, FIDE would have to agree to Yifan’s proposal.
In La Règle du Jeau
Fernando Arrabal, playwright, screenwriter, film director, novelist and
poet, has published a translation of our interview with Hou Yifan in French.
For the interview he has made a collage depicting the Women's World Champion
as Jeanne d'Arc – and himself as Pan – in Greek mythology the
god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, companion of the nymphs.
Read
the full Arrabal translation in French here
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Fernando Arrabal
Fernando Arrabal Terán is a playwright,
screenwriter, film director, novelist and poet, born in Melilla,
Spain, but settled in France since 1955; he describes himself as “desterrado”,
or “half-expatriate, half-exiled”.
Arrabal has directed seven full-length feature films; he has published
more than 100 plays, 14 novels, 800 poetry collections, chapbooks,
and artist’s books. His complete plays have been published in
a number of languages – the New York Times theatre critic Mel
Gussow has called Arrabal the last survivor among the “three
avatars of modernism”. A friend of Andy Warhol and Tristan Tzara,
Arrabal spent three years as a member of André Breton’s
surrealist group.
Arrabal has a strong interest in chess and has attended many chess
tournaments. For over thirty years he has written a column on chess
for the French weekly L’Express.
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Addendum
And here is a Chinese
translation of our interveiw – and here a Google
retranslation back into English.
Links
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Why
Hou Yifan has dropped out of the cycle
5/20/2016 – At fourteen she was the youngest female player ever
to gain the title of grandmaster, and at sixteen she became the youngest
Women's World Champion in history. She has won the title four times
and is the reigning champion. Now Hou Yifan, 100 points stronger than
any of her colleagues, has abandoned the Women's Championship cycle.
She tells us why and calls for a reform of the system. Her proposal
is amazingly simple.
- Interview
with Hou Yifan
4/2/2016 – In March Hou Yifan, number one on the women's ranking
list, regained the world title, which she had lost when she did not take
part in the knock-out World Championship the year before. In an interview
with Dagobert Kohlmeyer the World Champion criticises the mode of the
Women's World Championship and reveals that her proposals for a different
system were made in vain.
