Home and Away

Two world-class writers reveal themselves to be the ultimate soccer fans in these collected letters

Karl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Sk ne with his wife, four small children, and dog. He is watching soccer on TV and falls asleep in front of the set. He likes 0-0 draws, cigarettes, coffee, and Argentina.

Fredrik Ekelund is away, in Brazil, where he plays soccer on the beach and watches matches with others. Ekelund loves games that end up 4-3 and teams that play beautiful soccer. He likes caipirinhas and Brazil.

Home and Away is an unusual soccer book, in which the two authors use soccer and the World Cup in Brazil as the arena for reflections on life and death, art and politics, class and literature. What does it mean to be at home in a globalized world?

This exchange of letters opens up new vistas and gives us stories from the lives of two creative writers. We get under their skin and gain insight into their relationships with modern times and soccer's place in their lives, the significance the game has for people in general, and the question Was this the best soccer championship ever?

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 01/10/2017
ISBN: 9780374279837
Pages: 432
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.30d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2016 pg. 60
Booklist 11/15/2016 pg. 9
Publishers Weekly 12/05/2016