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One of the great sports books of our time, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow,” by Uruguay’s legendary novelist and journalist Eduardo Galeano, is now available for the first time as an e-book. Brimming with wit and charm and the kind of insight only a true fan could bring, it “stands out like Pelé on a field of second stringers,” says “The New Yorker.”

Originally appearing in Spanish in 1995, now revised and thoroughly updated, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow” traces the sport from its roots in China to the Brazilian slums where the dance form capoeira reshaped it into a soccer “made of hip feints, undulations of the torso, and legs in flight,” and finally through the great moments of a century’s worth of competition in all corners of the globe.

These stories come addictively fast and furious, as vignettes that have the searing impact of great photographs. And as would be expected of one of our great historians, Galeano sets every one of them against a greater context: the wars being waged, the cultural shifts transforming societies, and what inflames him the most: the inexorable influences of money, sponsorship, television, and any form of cold, hard calculation that aims to place winning for its own sake above the beauty and glory of the game.

“[I am] a beggar for good soccer,” writes Galeano. “I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’ ” The past century’s great players, from Di Stéfano to Cruyff to Maradona, reward him with such moves, and we are all the richer for it. At times hilarious, at others heartbreaking, one thing it never lacks is humanity. “Soccer in Sun and Shadow” is a fan’s book, and it’s much more. Featuring original artwork by the author, it has been called by the “San Francisco Chronicle” “a loving tribute to the game and its culture, and a celebration not only of soccer but also of life.”

PRAISE FOR “SOCCER IN SUN AND SHADOW”

"One of the Top 100 Best Sports Books of All Time.” —Sports Illustrated

“Is there any book more evocative of ‘the beautiful game’ than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom?” —Vanity Fair

“[Galeano is] the poet laureate of world soccer.” —The New York Times

“Brilliant, lyrical flights of language that, like a player racing down the field in a mad, beautifully executed breakaway, are piercingly and unexpectedly insightful.” —Village Voice Literary Supplement

“It's all here. Everything you should know about soccer, the world's game.” —Los Angeles Times

“This effervescent book, illustrated by the author’s spry silhouettes, is a lyrical celebration of the Latin character.” —Boston Globe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eduardo Galeano is one of Latin America’s most distinguished writers. He is the author of the three-volume “Memory of Fire,” as well as “Open Veins of Latin America,” “Children of the Days,” “Mirrors,” and many more, translated into thirty languages. He is the recipient of the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom, the American Book Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the First Distinguished Citizen of the region by the countries of Mercosur.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Mark Fried is the translator of seven books by Eduardo Galeano and other works of Latin American literature. He lives in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife, the writer Elizabeth Hay.

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