Queen of Katwe

One Girl's Triumphant Path to Becoming a Chess Champion

By: Tim Crothers

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Paperback | 31 October 2016

At a Glance

Paperback
240 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.2 x 12.9 x 19.6

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Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a mud hut with her mother and siblings, and struggles to find a meal each day. She is also one of the best chess players in the world.

One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, a refugee who had also grown up in the slums. Robert had an improbable aspiration: to empower Katwe’s kids through chess — a game so foreign that there was no word for it in their native language. Robert taught the game each day. At first the children came for the free porridge, but many grew to love chess, a game that — as in their daily lives — meant navigating obstacles. One talented young girl stood out: Phiona.

By the age of 11, Phiona was Uganda’s junior champion; at 15, she was the national champion. In 2010, she traveled to Siberia to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world’s most prestigious team-chess event. Phiona’s dream is to become a chess grand master. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with life in one of the world’s most unstable countries — a place where girls are taught to be mothers, not dreamers, and the threats of AIDS, kidnapping, and starvation loom constantly.

Like Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, this is an intimate and heartrending portrait of human life on the urban fringes in the 21st century.

Industry Reviews

A moving and universal story of the power of potential and the wonder of perseverance. This story will inspire you - and will make you wonder how many more Phionas there are among us.' - Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, NYT-bestselling author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana; '[A] story of a young woman's triumph over the unimaginably cruel fortune ... would pierce a heart of stone.'- Hillary Jordan, NYT-bestselling author of Mudbound and When She Woke; 'Almost too uplifting to believe ... Crothers tells Phiona Mutesi's story in a crisp, reportorial style, but it's nearly impossible to read without a strong emotional response ... Inspiring.'- Booklist; 'An extraordinary account of one young woman's exceptional achievement. It is also a lament for this world in which only a tiny number of incredibly fortunate and exceptionally determined children have any chance of escaping the dehumanising poverty that prevails in Katwe and places like it.'- NPR

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