From the publisher:
Exuberant, playful, and evergreen, The Game at the End of the World revels in the grass-stained highlights of a sport without borders or boundaries.
Soccer (née football) fans will rejoice at this all-new volume of crackling essays from the author of God Is Round. Here, Juan Villoro explores the sport through the elements that make it the world's favorite pastime, from its ancient origins, near-mythic players, exhilarating matches, endemic rivalries, and the unlikely moments in which football has changed history.
As a prolific writer and chronicler of World Cup games around the world, Villoro draws on a rich cultural mosaic to inspire readers, players, and fans long after the final whistle blows. With a journalist's ear and a philosopher's outlook, he has produced a collection for curious newcomers and lifelong football buffs alike.
The author:
Juan Villoro is a prize-winning Mexican author, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter. His books have been translated into multiple languages. Several of his books have appeared in English, including his celebrated 2016 essay collection on soccer brought out by Restless Books, God Is Round. Villoro lives in Mexico City and has been a visiting lecturer at Yale, Princeton, and Stanford.
Francisco Cantú is a writer, translator, and the author of The Line Becomes a River, winner of the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright, a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Award, an Art for Justice fellowship, and the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano Literature. His writing and translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Review, Granta, Guernica, and VQR, as well as on This American Life. He lives in Tucson, where he is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona and a co-coordinator of the Field Studies in Writing Program and the oral history archive DETAINED: Voices from the Migrant Incarceration System.
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