The Global Game: Writers on Soccer

The world’s most popular sport, soccer, is also one of the planet’s prevalent cultural expressions, celebrated and debated as an art form, observed with ritual and passion. Thus it has inspired literary efforts of every sort, from every corner of the globe, by women and men. The writings gathered in this volume reflect the universal and infinitely varied ways in which soccer connects with human experience. Poetry and prose from Ted Hughes, Charles Simic, Eduardo Galeano, Gunter Grass, Giovanna Pollarolo, 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and Elvis Costello—to name but a few—take us to a dizzying array of cultures and climes. From a patch of ground in Missoula, Montana, to a clearing in a Kosovo forest, from the stadiums of Burma and Iran to the northern lights over Greenland to remotest Sierra Leone, these writers show us soccer’s stars and fans, politics and rituals, as well as the game’s power to encourage resistance, inspire faith, and build community.

John Turnbull is a freelance writer on soccer and an editorial consultant. He maintains www.theglobalgame.com, a soccer Web site with an accent on women’s soccer, media, and culture. Translator and author Thom Satterlee is associate professor of English at Taylor University. Alon Raab is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis, and the author of articles, reviews, and interviews.

Contributors: Rafael Alberti, Eduard Bass, Nalinaksha Bhattacharya, Hebe de Bonafini, Lawrence Cann, Bridget Carson, Hernan Casciari, Elvis Costello, Edilberto Coutinho, Erik Eggers, Friedrich Christian Delius, Gyorgy Dragoman, Philippe Dubath, Alvaro Enrigue, Eduardo Galeano, Gunter Grass, Einar Mar Guemundsson, William Heyen, Miroslav Holub, Ted Hughes, Ian Jack, Elisabet Jokulsdottir, Ephraim Kishon, Simon Kuper, Anatoly Kuznetsov, Driton Latifi, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Mario Vargas Llosa, Subcomandante Marcos, Javier Marias, Andrew Marshall, Stanley Matthews, Christopher Merrill, Massimo Moratti, Lady Murasaki, Mark Nuttall, Giovanna Pollarolo, Julio Ramon Ribeyro, Paul Richards, Klaus Rifbjerg, Nelson Rodrigues, Maria Graciela Rodriguez, Umberto Saba, Matilde Sanchez, Thom Satterlee, Rogelio Ramos Signes, Charles Simic, Antonio Skarmeta, Osvaldo Soriano, David Starkey, Gay Talese, Crispin Thomas, Bea Vidacs, Luiz Vilela, Sarah Wardle, Ch’ao Yueh-chih, and Uro? Zupan.