It would be easy to dismiss Tim Crothers's The Queen of Katwe as just another feel-good, underdog triumph tale. And, make no mistake, it is exactly that - but it's a darn good one all the same. If a person can live in the most abject poverty and disadvantage imaginable and yet rise to junior chess champion of her continent, maybe we all can dare to hope. Maybe we all can take inspiration from Phiona Mutesi and do something with our lives, accomplish something during our brief stay on earth.
As you'd expect, though, the book lacks nuance and complexity where it needs it most. The author states in the epilogue that, upon writing a magazine article on Phenomenal Phiona, he knew he must expand it to book length and tell the whole story. Now, the book will only do good for Phiona (and possibly others in Katwe), but the story (at least as Crothers relates it) should have remained in the periodical realm.
He spends the crucial second chapter telling the rather confusing life story of the man who came to run the program that introduced Phiona to chess, and many other parts drag on as filler to take a rather simple story to book length. At the same time, Crothers pays no attention to the political realities of Uganda that foster the slums which make Phiona the rare exception to the rule of degrading and desperate poverty. He mentions Idi Amin in passing several times as if he were simply a former president, like Gerald Ford, and not the Uber-African despot. In the end, the book reads like an overlong magazine fluff piece, when it could have been a serious book about not only an exceptional girl, but also about the world which makes a successful girl something to marvel at.
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