Chess
Bitch is an
eye-opening account of how today’s young female chessplayers are
successfully knocking down the doors to the traditionally male game,
infiltrating the male-owned sporting subculture of international chess,
giving the phrase “play like a girl” a whole new meaning.Through interviews with and observations of the young globetrotting women chessplayers who challenge male domination, Chess Bitch shines a harsh light on the game’s gender bias. Shahade begins by profiling the lives of great women players from history, starting with Vera Menchik, who defeated male professionals with incredible frequency and became the first Women’s World Champion in 1927. She then investigates the women’s chess dynasties in Georgia and China and interviews the famous Polgar sisters, who refused to play in separate women’s tournaments.
She details her own chess adventures – traveling to tournaments from New Delhi to New York to Shanghai. Shahade also introduces us to the glamorous grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk and current Women’s World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova as well as lesser-known players like the flamboyant Zambian Linda Nangwale and the transgendered Texan Angela Alston, and myriad female players who hop from one country to another, playing chess by day and partying long into the night.
For those who think of chess as two people sitting quietly across a table, Shahade paints a colorful world that most chess fans never knew existed.
"A thorough history of women in the game, from the fascinating Garbo-like Sonja Graf, born in 1908, to outspoken party girl Antoaneta Stefanova, born in 1979. The women Shahade writes about are, for the most part, interesting, dynamic and attractive, which gives the lie to the stereotype that girls who play chess are nerdy and unappealing." Liz Spikol in The Philadelphia Weekly
