GG AlShamsi

Aisha Al Shamsi has hosted a majlis of poets and writers in her home for more than forty years, and her own verse has been recited at gatherings across the Emirates. She came to the game as she came to poetry, by listening: as a girl she sat beside her grandfather's board for years before she was ever invited to play. Play something good against her and two lines arrive. Not praise and not commentary, just the couplet the move reminded her of, sometimes classical and sometimes her own, and she will not explain which. She plays slowly and classically, places each checker with long-practised care, and has taught her grandchildren at the same low table where she learned.