PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS
FOOTBALL IN SUN AND SHADOW
Eduardo Galeano was a Uruguayan journalist, novelist and writer, widely held to be one of Latin America’s most distinguished and admired literary figures. Born in Montevideo in 1940 to a modest middle-class Catholic family, Galeano published his first work – a political cartoon – in El Sol newspaper aged just fifteen. He went on to work for various weekly newspapers and magazines, and in 1971 he published his first book, the bestselling Open Veins of Latin America. Following his brief imprisonment during the Uruguayan military coup of 1973, Galeano fled the country: he lived in exile in Argentina and Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work – including the celebrated Memory of Fire trilogy – has been translated into twenty-eight languages, and during his lifetime Galeano’s achievements as a writer were recognized with many literary prizes, including the hugely prestigious Casa de las Americas award. He died in 2015.
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First published as El futból a sol y sombra by Siglo XXI Editores, S.A., and Ediciones del Chanchito 1995
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate 1997
First published in Penguin Classics 2018
Copyright © Eduardo Galeano, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2009, 2013
Translation copyright © Mark Fried, 1997, 2003, 2009, 2013
The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted
Cover photograph: World Cup final match between Brazil and Italy, 1994 in Los Angeles
Photo Lutz Bongarts/Bongarts/Getty Images
ISBN: 978-0-241-35536-7
The pages that follow are dedicated to the children who once upon a time, years ago, crossed my path on Calella de la Costa. They had been playing football and were singing:
We lost, we won, either way we had fun.