Former chess player Kyla Zhao is the author of thrilling novels showcasing female empowerment. The books of the 26-year-old Singaporean have been featured on platforms such as CBS, NBC, Vogue, Elle, and many more. For her contributions to Asian representation in the media, Zhao was selected by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 honoree and awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the California State Assembly. She now works at a tech company in Silicon Valley after graduating from Stanford University in 2021.
This September, Zhao’s back with her third book in just two years: May The Best Player Win (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, on sale September 2024). I was given the chance to read the book in advance and write a review of it, which you can read here. Last week I even had the opportunity to sit down with Zhao and have an extensive conversation about the book and her own chess journey. Please enjoy my interview with Kyla Zhao, author of May the Best Player Win!
1. Tell me your own chess story.
I grew up in Singapore, even though I’m based in America right now. I started playing chess when I was six. My grandfather introduced me to it, and I really enjoyed moving the little pieces around. When I was seven, I started primary school and joined my school’s chess club, which was one of the strongest in the country for our age group. Thus, I had very good coaches and started participating nationally, so I competed in school tournaments throughout my primary and secondary school years. Sometime during secondary school my interest in chess started flagging for a variety of reasons, which I explore in my book. Number one was that I really enjoyed the social component of learning chess, but more and more female friends were dropping out of chess. Therefore, I was no longer getting this social aspect. I think I also became increasingly aware of how female chess players were perceived. For instance, I remember when I was eleven and at a chess competition. In front of the pairing sheet I heard a boy tell his friend that he’ll easily win against me because I was a girl. I think little moments like that added up and when I started moving up the levels I noticed there were fewer and fewer female players, and that there weren’t that many female role models. This really made me start questioning whether chess was really a space where I (or girls like me) would be able to go very far in a field that seemed rather unfavorable to me. I think that was a big reason besides my own performance anxiety getting worse. My focus on winning medals and not losing was overshadowing the joy the game would bring me. I believe the combination of all these factors made me sadly fall out of love with chess. By the time I graduated from secondary school, I realized that my mindset around chess was really unhealthy, so I had to take a step back. I stopped playing chess competitively. I’d still enjoy it as a spectator and play chess casually online, but I never sat down at a tournament chess board again. I think in hindsight I’m glad I made that decision because if not I might have gotten into a state in which I really hated chess, but I was able to put some distance before I got to that stage. I’m sure that’s a big reason why I still can enjoy chess now.
2. You authentically portray the Chinese cultural aspects of May’s life. You yourself were born in Singapore and live now in California. Do you see any parallels between your youth and May’s?
Not particularly. My book is set in California because by the time I began writing the book, I had already been living in California for a few years. I also started writing it during the pandemic, when I was living alone in California and my home in Singapore felt so far away.
In terms of whether there are any parallels in our upbringing, I don’t think so. May’s journey —in a way —is also an exploration of me asking myself a question like: Would I have continued with chess if something had been different? If I had reacted differently or if I had grown up in a different environment? If I had had a different support system? Even though her story is based on mine and the challenges she faces are inspired by my personal experience, she is a different personality from me and her environment is different from than the one I grew up in.
3. Why did you want May to specifically have Chinese roots?
When I was growing up, in a lot of the most popular shows and movies, the main character was a blonde girl with blue eyes. Thus, for the longest time I had this idea that only girls looking like that could be the main characters, while Asian girls like myself could only be the nerdy sidekick, for instance. I think it’s very important for children to be able to see themselves in the media, to see characters in the media they can identify with. I hope that when young Asian readers see that a young Asian girl is the main character of my book, they feel more seen, represented and empowered.
4. A very present topic in the book is delicious food. Whether it’s extra-large milkshakes, traditional Chinese food or terrific Halloween party-catering, May is often enjoying some delicious dishes. Is food an important aspect of your own life?
Yes! For context: I wrote the book during the pandemic lockdown, while nobody was going out to eat because all the restaurants were shut down. I didn’t see anyone for months, I was living alone for most of the year and I couldn’t go home to see my family in Singapore. I think in a way writing that book was my way of living through my characters. I was stuck in a small apartment eating frozen pasta and I was imagining what the good food would be that I’d be eating. That made its way into my writing. I think another big reason is that in the Chinese culture food is a very essential component and also a very social component. Food is for my parents also a way of showing love, for instance, so in my mind I’ve always associated it with love. When May is going through all these challenges, she has to find a way to overcome them. One way is building a good support system around her, so in a way the food represents the support she could be getting from her family and her friends.
5. Why was it important for you to write a story about a young female chess player?
Like I said earlier, I wrote it for my younger-self. I dropped out of competitive chess after secondary school and since then I’ve had a lot of conversations with other chess players and coaches. Thus, I realized that it’s not a phenomenon or situation that’s unique to me. Meaning that at the lower levels in chess, the gender ratio is not as imbalanced as at the levels with more experienced and older players, because female players drop out of chess at a disproportionately higher rate than male players (to learn more about this topic, read my article about gender bias in chess ). The ages of 10 to 14 are the crucial juncture where most of the players make the decision to continue with chess or abandon it completely. At that age, I faced a similar dilemma and I made a decision that I sometimes wonder “what if I had chosen to continue with chess? What could’ve happened, how much further could I have come? Now, I hope that my book reaches chess players at that age (when they are questioning their passion for chess or for any activity) and introduces a new perspective to their mind and maybe helps them make a decision. That’s the best I hope for.
6. What would you like the readers to learn from May’s story? What would you say is the moral of the story?
That’s a good question. I think the main message of the story is to hold onto what brings you joy, hold onto what you’re passionate about regardless of other people’s opinions and expectations.
7. Would you have liked to have such an encouraging and empathetic book as a young chess player to read yourself?
Yes, I really wish I did. When I was younger all the chess books that I knew where all instructional books; I didn’t know any fictional stories about chess. Even if there were, I feel like they were always for an older audience with chess being used as a metaphor or analogy for life or how brutal life can be, and I wanted a more fun and up-lifting story! I wish I had someone when I was younger, telling me that’s okay to crash even if you love something, but it’s up to you to figure out for yourself whether this activity brings you joy and not to listen to other people’s expectations. That’s not important, what is important is if you’re passionate about it and if it makes you happy. That’s what I would’ve wanted to hear as a kid and I would’ve found it comforting and reassuring to know that other people were going through a similar thing.
8. Did you like The Queen’s Gambit, and are there any chess-themed books or movies etc. you enjoy?
I did like The Queen’s Gambit. I actually watched it many months after I finished my book, so I didn’t know anything about the series when I finished my first draft of the book. Actually, the very first title of my book was The Queen’s Gambit because it sounded like a very natural title and well… Walter Travis took it first! Then it became May the Best Player Win. There’s this scene in the book where they watch movies at the chess club and point out if the chess boards were set up incorrectly. That’s what I did when I was younger with my chess club teammates, but I don’t do it now anymore, although I still get excited when I see chess in popular culture, like in this Louis Vuitton advertisement with Messi and Ronaldo with the chess board set up with a real game. Things like that are very cool.
This interview was conducted via Zoom in September 2024, in English. Tatiana Flores transcribed it.
For more information on the author Kyla Zhao and May’s chess journey, you can read the book (of course!) and visit Zhao’s website!
