“Phiona is lucky to be here. the Ugandan women’s team has never participated in a Chess Olympiad before because Uganda could never afford it. But this year the president of FIDE, the world’s governing body of chess, has arranged funding for the entire Ugandan team to travel to the Olympiad in the hope of garnering the country’s vote in his reelection campaign. Phiona needs breaks like that,” (Crothers 4).
Phiona Mutesi’s life changes one day when she follows her older brother looking for food but finds a group of children her age playing chess. Seeing promise in her, Robert Katende helps teach Phiona the game where she shows great promise for the game that changes her life forever.
Did you know that chess is classified as a sport? Because I learned from this book that the International Olympic Committee recognizes chess as a sport but that it is not approved to be played at the Olympics because “it does not involve physical exertion or athleticism” like other Olympic sports. So if you only ever played chess in school and no other sports, I have exciting news for you, you can technically call yourself a jock! That is one of the most interesting things I learned from this book.
That isn’t to say that The Queen of Katwe isn’t interesting in other aspects. I really enjoyed learning about Phiona Mutesi, but we spend very little time actually getting to know her or her story. Most of the book focuses on people in Phiona’s life or around her then her actual time learning and playing chess. I can guess this is because by Phiona’s own admission, in Ugandan culture many people do not express themselves or let others know what they are thinking so Crothers most likely used the backgrounds of other people to bulk up this book.
Another problem is that since Crothers is a sports writer, and since chess is technically a sport, this book is written as a sports book, and I’ve never been a big sports person. I would have liked if the book spent more time on chess, it’s history, and how that related to Phiona’s story instead. Though I did enjoy learning that the Christian groups chiefly involved with bringing the chess group to Phiona’s community realized that building churches only did so much to actually help and realized that by providing food or things like chess (and providing food at meetings) helped communities develop skills instead of solely relying on faith. It was nice to see that that organization was at least a bit more realistic on how they could help people.
I’ll also say it’s a bit disappointing to see that Crothers didn’t appear to follow-up or add anything to this book despite promising to do so in future publications of the book and that it is difficult to find any new information on Phiona after 2016. I would have liked to learn more about how her chess career has gone and what she’s doing now.
There’s no doubt that The Queen of Katwe is an interesting read, well-researched, and full of a lot of good information, but I do expect a book about a girl who is good at playing chess to focus more on the girl who is playing chess, and chess itself.
Publication: October 9 2012 Publisher: Vintage Canada Pages: 240 pages (Paperback) Source: Library Genre: Non-Fiction, Sports My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤ Summary:
PHIONA MUTESI sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and three siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona has been out of school most of her life because her mother cannot afford it, so she is only now learning to read and write. Phiona Mutesi 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, who had also grown up in the Kampala slums. Katende, a war refugee turned missionary, had an improbable dream: to empower kids through chess—a game so foreign there is no word for it in their native language. Laying a chessboard in the dirt of the Katwe slum, Robert painstakingly taught the game each day. When he left at night, slum kids played on with bottlecaps on scraps of cardboard. At first they came for a free bowl of porridge, but many grew to love chess, a game that—like their daily lives—means persevering against great obstacles. Of these kids, one stood out as an immense talent: Phiona. By the age of eleven Phiona was her country’s junior champion and at fifteen, the national champion. In September 2010, she traveled to Siberia, a rare journey out of Katwe, to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world’s most prestigious team-chess event. Phiona’s dream is to one day become a Grandmaster, the most elite title in chess. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with everyday 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 over the people.
Sarah O'Connor 