Football in Fiction represents the most comprehensive historical mapping and analysis of novels related to association football (soccer). It offers a theoretically informed field guide, a scholarly cartography of football fiction's uncertain - and until now - only partially explored terrain.

Combining an extensive search for texts with up-to-date academic research, journals, surveys, catalogues, and reviews the book demonstrates a topographic perspective of the field - one that captures and establishes its breadth, depth, and distinctive identity. The book uses and adapts two distinct reading models of abstraction, in conjunction with closer textual analyses. Together they assist in realising a set of demonstrable conventions, outline a taxonomy of fictive types, establish the genre's current state of play, and advance the football novel as a form with its own literary history and traditions.

This book is a valuable resource for those studying and researching in the areas of the social and cultural aspects of football, sports fiction, sports writing, creative writing, and literary and genre studies. Furthermore, related industry professionals will find this a fascinating read, particularly football writers, fans of the sport, and those interested in sports history and cultural phenomena.

About the Author

Lee McGowan is Researcher at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Besides critical football studies in women's football and football fiction, his research focuses on generative narratives and community engagement. He is currently researching the social history of Australian women's football.

Reviews

"a pioneering work that should be considered an initial step in the exploration of a relatively unknown landscape for the sports historian." - Daniel Alsarve, OErebro University, idrottsforum.org

Book Information
ISBN 9780367361327
Author Lee McGowan
Format Hardback
Page Count 174
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g