---

´Football is a pleasure that hurts´

This unashamedly emotional history of football is a homage to the romance and drama, spectacle and passion of a ´great pagan mass´. Through stories of superstition, heartbreak, tragedy, luck, heroes and villains, those who lived for football and those who died for it, Eduardo Galeano celebrates the glory of a game that - however much the rich and powerful try to control it - still retains its magic.

´The Uruguayan whose writing got right to the heart of football ... readers were never in doubt of the warmth of the blood running through his veins´ Guardian

´Galeano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia´ When Saturday Comes

´Stands out like Pele on a field of second-stringers´ New Yorker

---

Galeano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia. When Saturday Comes

---

Galeano, Eduardo
Eduardo Galeano is one of Latin America´s most distinguished writers. He is the author of the three-volume Memory of Fire; Open Veins of Latin America; Soccer in Sun and Shadow; The Book of Embraces; Walking Words; Upside Down; and Voices in Time. Born in Montevideo in 1940, he lived in exile in Argentina and Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He is recipient of many international prizes.

---