What literary texts do you know, where chess plays a (minor or major) role?

Here's my suggestions:

VLADIMIR NABOKOV - The Defense (some reviews: here and here)

TEVIS, WALTER - The Queen's Gambit (some reviews: here and here)

ZWEIG, STEFAN - The Royal Game (some reviews: here and here)

Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and Alice in Wonderland has been purported to have a large hidden chess puzzle in the text. I will look through my records for a Susan Polgar blog post that addressed this (or you can search it yourself). The Wikipedia entry (because I've not read the book) says that it's maybe unfounded, but it's an interesting thesis. You can find elements of chess in just the text, without even getting into Carroll's personal life.

Also, Nabokov wrote a lot about chess. I've not read The Defense, but his Speak, Memory even has chess puzzles in there. He contributed many puzzles to published material. See my other posts for a quote of his on the art of the chess puzzle.

Maybe with this group we should be addressing not as much how chess appears in art, but instead how chess is art. I personally believe it is art, but I can't necessarily explain why. It has something beyond its mathematical calculation, something beyond which a computer can search for future computer variations (man can still beat the best chess computers).

I like the idea of this group. Why only two (now three) members? Regardless, I think we can have some interesting conversation here.