Abel Folgar is a Miami legend. Bred from the old school, he’s a writer’s writer. He doesn’t care about money. He’s an old school punk rock librarian and one of Miami’s best music journalists. We love Abel and publishing his translation of Juego De Chicos was a pleasure.
It’s such a good book and so timely with the World Cup.
Enjoy this silly podcast and support the novella.
It’s all a treat, albeit a little scattered.
We play around, but we work hard.
Reminiscences of youth. Painful memories. The warmth of a crowded car. The dregs of a potent hangover. Dual identities. The smell of a freshly mowed pitch. The dynamism of team sports. Promiscuity. The unyielding intolerance of previous generations. A late night tango. The absolute beauty of football (soccer).
All this and more drives the first-person narrative of Facundo R. Soto’s Juego de Chicos, a crisp bildungsroman that dips in and out of the surrealism of a gay football squad etched into the reality of Argentina’s national religion. In this most macho of macho scenarios, Soto becomes a participant in the struggles and triumphs of a team created out of necessity. The cast of characters, anonymous in a way, but easily identified by their positions, is pulled from every echelon of society—proving hooliganism only knows team allegiance
