The FIFA World Cup Brazil™ begins tomorrow, and lasts until 13 July -- a month that will keep football ("soccer") fans busy and presumably less-focused on literary matters.
Nevertheless, some sites do make an effort to make a connection. Yes, all sorts of football-related books are being published (I'll pass, for now, thanks), but other online distractions include:
Nevertheless, some sites do make an effort to make a connection. Yes, all sorts of football-related books are being published (I'll pass, for now, thanks), but other online distractions include:
- At The New Republic -- where they like to play at football fandom, and look to have fairly extensive World Cup coverage -- they have Eleven Writers and Intellectuals on the World Cup's Most Compelling Characters: Aleksandar Hemon on Miralem Pjanić, Karl Ove Knausgaard on Ángel Di María, Geoff Dyer on Gareth Bale, etc.
- At Scottish Booktrust Danny Scott offers A Booklover's Guide to World Cup 2014, matching the competing nations/teams with "great books in translation from each of the countries competing at Brazil 2014" (they're not all fiction -- and they're not all translations)
- More ambitiously, Three Percent has launched a World Cup of Literature, pitting books (fiction) from each competing country against each other, following the group format from the actual World Cup (albeit not having everyone 'play' everyone in each group). They apparently did make an effort: "in some quasi-logical way, to tie each book to its country's actual team" -- though I'm looking forward to hearing some of those explanations: flyweight Australia is represented by heavyweight Barley Patch by Gerald Murnane, one of the great works of fiction in English of the past decade (surely a Tim Winton title should have gotten the call), way too many countries are represented by dead authors, and some choices seem just cruel (South Korea is represented by a novel whose main character is a sleeper-spy from North Korea (what are they suggesting ?); Belgium by a novel featuring a hell of a lot of alcoholic excess (and titled The Misfortunates ?!??); Ivory Coast by a novel -- very good though it is -- about child soldiers ? what the hell is the subtext there ?)