Richard Bozulich



Richard Bozulich (born 1936) is an American author, publisher of Go books in English and college math instructor. He co-founded the Ishi Press. He has worked with several Japanese professional players. He had a regular go column in The Daily Yomiuri, which at that time was Japan's largest English-language newspaper. He lives in Chigasaki, Japan. In 2012 Bozulich was a candidate for Comptroller of New York City for the War Veterans Party.

From university
Bozulich was born in Los Angeles, California. From 1955 to 1956, he attended UCLA, studying the foundations of mathematics in the philosophy department under Richard Montague. Eventually he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 with a BA in mathematics. Bozulich had worked his way through college by buying and selling highly technical used books and upon graduation decided to become a book publisher.

Ishi Press
He moved to Japan and in 1967 in partnership with Stuart Dowsey founded The Ishi Press, a book and magazine publishing company that published books primarily about the game of go.

Ishi Press' first few publications were translations of Japanese books such as Eio Sakata's The Middle Game of Go and Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vol. I and II but Bozulich soon began working with Japanese professional players, as well as principal collaborators James Davies and John Power, to produce original works in English. The first of these, Basic techniques of Go by Nagahara and Haruyama, was published in 1969. In 1973, Bozulich asked James Davies to write a seven-volume set covering the fundamentals of go, titled The Elementary Go Series. The first two volumes of this series In the Beginning by Ishigure (and Davies) and 38 Basic Joseki by Kosugi and Davies were published in 1974. By 1984, the set was complete, when Ishi Press published Nagahara and Bozulich's Handicap Go. Meanwhile, Bozulich continued to translate and publish Japanese material for the nascent Western go-playing community, selecting volumes such as Kageyama's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go and Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go, and a series of books about basic opening strategies: The Power of the Star-Point (Takagawa), The Chinese Opening: The Sure Win Strategy (Kato) and The 3–3 Point: Modern Opening Theory (Cho).

In 1977, the Japan Go Association ceased publication of Go Review, their English-language magazine. Working closely with Power, Bozulich published a quarterly magazine Go World which continued through 129 issues, ceasing publication in 2013. For many years Go World was the major source in English for comprehensive analysis of top Japanese tournament games.

Kiseido
In 1982 Bozulich founded Kiseido Publishing Company, publishing Invincible: The Games of Shusaku. This biography and game collection by John Power is about Honinbo Shusaku, the most famous Japanese player from the 1800s. Kiseido became more active in the 1990s, when Bozulich produced two more multi-volume sets of instructional material: the twelve volume Mastering the Basics series, and the ten volume Get Strong at Go series. Kiseido continues to publish other books as well, such as The Go Player's Almanac, The World of Chinese Go and An Introduction to Modern Fuseki: Korean Style.

Go World
Richard Bozulich has written or published more than one hundred books, magazines, and newspaper articles about the game of go. He is the world's most prolific author of go materials in English. Richard Bozulich was the publisher of Go World magazine until it ceased publication in 2012, after 129 issues. He lives in Chigasaki, Japan and has worked as an instructor of mathematics at Shonan Institute of Technology until 2005, physics and chemistry at a local college. His father and mother were from Dugi Otok, an island off Zadar in Croatia.