My Name Is Tani . . . and I Believe in Miracles: The Amazing True Story of One Boy’s Journey from Refugee to Chess Champion with Kayode, Oluwatoyin and Tani Adewumi (Thomas Nelson)

Like a lot of other people on the planet I smiled when I first read about Tani. It was back in 2019 and there was plenty of interest in this little refugee kid who lived in a homeless shelter and became a chess champion a year after first playing the game. As good news stories go, it was one of the best. The New York Times kicked it off, a film’s in the works, and even The Economist has got in on the action.

But within an hour or two of sitting down with Tani and his family it was clear that there was more to the story than trophies and tournaments. There was Tani himself.

I’ve never met anyone quite like him – adult or child.

‘You know,’ he said to me one day, mouth full of one of the many Curly Wurlys I was using as bribery, ‘when you lose a match, you don’t have to lose.’

‘How’s that?"‘

‘If you learn from what happened, then you’ve gained something. So, if you have the right way of thinking, you never really lose. You only ever win.’