Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game - Softcover

Knausgaard, Karl Ove; Ekelund, Fredrik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374279837 ISBN 13: 9780374279837

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017

Synopsis

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

Karl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Skåne 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?

About this title

About the Author:

Karl Ove Knausgaard was born in Norway in 1968. His debut novel, Out of This World, won the Norwegian Critics Prize in 2004 and his novel A Time for Everything was a finalist for the Nordic Council Prize. For My Struggle: Book 1, Knausgaard received the Brage Award in 2009, the 2010 Book of the Year Prize in Morgenbladet, and the P2 Listeners’ Prize. My Struggle: Book 1 was a New Yorker Book of the Year and My Struggle: Book 2 was listed among The Wall Street Journal’s 2013 Books of the Year. My Struggle is a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Knausgaard lives in Sweden with his wife and four children.

Fredrik Ekelund was born in Sweden in 1953. He published his first book, Stuv Malmö, in 1984, and has since published another dozen works―novels, detective novels, collections of poetry, and books about soccer. Ekelund is also a playwright, and has made two films (with documentary filmmaker Lars Westman), as well as working as a translator specializing in Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Review:

“Knausgaard and Ekelund make an ideal pair. . . . [Knausgaard’s] talent in describing his family life amid the chaos of watching and writing about football is evident throughout.” —National Post

“[F]or whom these letters resonate, the effect is powerful and cascading, a pleasing waterfall of imagery and intellect. Though the correspondence is mostly about soccer, it is also about so much more.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“[A] captivating tribute to soccer. Soccer fans will love Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game, perhaps persuaded by the title alone. My mission, then, is to exhort readers less familiar with the sport to try this captivating and even profound book by two writers at the top of their game. . . . Lifelong soccer fans, the authors each write from a passionate fan’s point of view, often describing the same match with wildly differing opinions. This book spoke to me as a soccer player and fan, highlighting in sublime detail the players and plays from a dramatic tournament. . . . Both authors have a knack for metaphor and apply it liberally to their sports writing. . . . Among the unexpected pleasures of the book is the power of letter writing to tell stories and deepen relationships. . . . So yes, Home and Away is about soccer, but it is, unpredictably and delightfully, much more than that.” —The Seattle Times

“[A] fantastic book of correspondence. . . . Although soccer fans will get the most of these lengthy discussions on players and tactics, readers with just a passing interest in the sport will be enlightened by their thorough exploration of how soccer has evolved over the years. . . . Filled with exquisite, solemn passages about the stark Scandinavian landscape and the quiet life of caring for children, Knausgaard’s letters are the weightier of the two. . . . As the book progresses, readers can see Knausgaard and Ekelund learning from each other, realizing new desires and prejudices, reevaluating former positions, reposition themselves. The discourse is so open, so productive and thoughtful, that when readers reach the final letter . . . sadness takes over.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“[T]heir interplay takes on the familiar cut and thrust of a football match. . . . [A] genuinely unusual, genuinely engaging two-hander of real affection and insight.” —Literary Review
 
“This might be the oddest book ever written about football. It is also fascinating, insightful. . . . Both men are as keen to discuss art, politics and death as they are to reflect on the beautiful game, and this strange, unclassifiable but engrossing book is the result.” —The Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0374279837
• ISBN 13: 9780374279837
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432