Countries of the World

"This is not the story of a Tartan Army foot soldier. Instead, I became a globetrotter, taking in all I could about Scotland, and their opponents, from afar." The protagonist, an unnamed translator, completes an assignment about the 1973 coup in Chile before returning to the fictional Scottish town of Breogan to write a book about football. Countries of the World is part-fiction and part-memoir, reflecting upon a time when the protagonist was a boy obsessed by sport and distant events. Written from local and global, childhood and adult perspectives, the narrator looks back on his small-town life and some of the major events of the era concerning Britain and South America: Thatcherism, The Falklands War, World Cups, military coups, dictatorships and disappearances. This short novel is liberally sprinkled with journalistic essays and musings on the beautiful game - scars and all - which continues to shine, despite its shadows.