Home and Away

Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in The Times and Evening Standard

Karl Ove Knausgaard and fellow writer Fredrik Ekelund kick around thoughts and ideas on football, life, art and politics

Karl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Skåne with his wife, four small children and a dog. He is watching football on TV and falls asleep in front of the set. He likes 0-0 draws, cigarettes, coffee and Argentina.

Fredrik Ekelund is away, in Brazil, where he plays football on the beach and watches matches with friends. Fredrik loves games that end up 4-3 and teams that play beautiful football. He likes caipirinhas and Brazil.

Home and Away is an unusual football book, in which the two authors use football and the World Cup in Brazil as the arena for reflections on life and death, art and politics, class and literature. What does it mean to be at home in a globalised world?

This exchange of letters opens up new vistas and gives us stories from the lives of two creative writers. We get under their skin and have an insight into their relationships with modern times and football's place in their lives, the significance the game has for people in general and the question: Was this the best football championship ever?