“Phiona’s story … will break readers’ hearts. Phiona’s perseverance, courage, faith, and hope will have the very same readers rooting for her success.” (School Library Journal)
The Queen of Katwe tells us the story of a soon-to-be Chess grandmaster who hails from a hopelessly miserable slum in Kampala, Uganda. Katwe slum is described as “one of the worst places on earth.” Phiona Mutesi, illiterate, was born and brought up in the most inhuman circumstances imaginable, where the only aspiration of the average child was daily survival , for which one has to fight from the day one is born.
Phiona’s father died of AIDs after abandoning the family. She lived with her three siblings in a shack and made a precarious living. Schooling was out of the question in this poverty-ridden country ravaged by civil wars and the after effects of Idi Amin’s reign. An accidental meeting with Robert Katende, an evangelical missionary, changed it all.
Katende, a war victim, could understand what it feels to be destitute, and what it means to be a survivor. He, too, had grown up in the slums and had found a way out when he fortunately got into a school and discovered the glories of Soccer. Soccer gave him “the happiest moments”—the only time he “felt at peace.” He was poised to be a national level player with dreams of international football, when his dreams crashed in the field in a serious life-threatening accident. But for his faith, he would never have played football again. He describes his miraculous survival thus: “That was when I gave my life to Christ and accepted Christ as my personal saviour.” He returned to soccer and earned his living playing for clubs and completing his education, helped by a religious group called Miracle Football, which combined faith and football.
Giving up an engineer’s job, he decided to work among the poor children and evangelize them through sports. Left with few resources, he found chess an easier way out (a game then unknown in Uganda). It worked. In Kampala he taught street children chess while building up strong bonds of community among them. Initially attracted by a free bowl of porridge, the kids soon caught up and were soon playing with improvised boards made out of cardboard and pieces made of bottle caps. The chessboards were laid in the dirt of the Katwe slum when they started.
It was into this boys’ world that in 2005 nine-year-old Phiona broke in while searching for food with her brother. Katende discovered her raw talent and trained her. At age eleven Phiona was Uganda’s junior champion; at fifteen, the national champion. In 2010, she took part in the Chess Olympiad in Siberia. That was the first time in her life she went outside Kampala and travelled in an airplane. Phiona dreams of Grandmastership, the topmost ranking in world Chess. Sports reporter Tim Crothers presents a deeply moving tale of tragedy, suffering, survival, and the triumph of faith and a tribute to the human spirit. It has been adapted into a recent film by Mira Nair.
The book concludes with Phiona’s “Tips for Chess,” which are useful for running our lives too:
(1) Believe in yourself.
(2) Challenge yourself.
(3) Don’t get too excited.
(4) Don’t get discouraged.
(5) Be Patient.
(6) Have a dream.
Scribner, 2013. Rs 768 on Amazon.in
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