The Solitude of Prime Numbers

In a Zoom interview with Peter Doggers for chess.com, 17th World Chess Champion 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) said he feels good, or at least, feels “much better than before”. He also went more into detail as to the nature of his illness and the reason why he disappeared for eight months from the chess scene. “It was psychological, not physical”, he said, hinting that he had some sort of nervous breakdown. One does not imagine that the crown threw the king into an abyss of despair only until one thinks of Boris Vasilievich Spassky, who is said to have called his days as a World Champion “the most unhappy” of his life. Now, finally, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) seems to have recovered enough to be back in the chess whirl, and soon time will tell whether Alda Merini was right in saying that “It’s not the mad but the sane who do harm”.