Now a significant motion picture starring Academy Award champion Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo, directed by Mira Nair.

The “astonishing” (The New York Times Book Review) and “inspirational” (Shelf Awareness) true story of Phiona Mutesi-a teenage chess prodigy from your slums of Uganda.

One day in 2005 while looking for food, nine-year-old Ugandan Phiona Mutesi followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende.

Katende, a war refugee turned missionary, had an improbable wish: approximately The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Lifestyle, Chess, and A single Extraordinary Woman to empower kids in the Katwe slum through chess-a video game so foreign there is no word for this in their local language. Laying a chess­panel in the dirt, Robert begun to teach. Initially children emerged for a free bowl of porridge, but many grew to like the overall game that-like their daily lives-requires persevering against great hurdles. Of these kids, one gal stood out as an enormous skill: Phiona.

By age eleven Phiona was her country’s junior champion, with fifteen, the national champ. Now a female Candidate Master-the first woman titled player in her country’s history-Phiona dreams to become a Grandmaster, the most elite level in chess. But to attain that objective, she must grapple with everyday life in one of the world’s most unpredictable countries. The Queen of Katwe is normally a “exceptional” (NPR) and “riveting” (New York Post) book that shows how “Phiona’s story transcends the limitations of the chessboard” (Robert Hess, US Grandmaster).