A Life Too Short
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  • Published: 14 June 2012
  • ISBN: 9781448124626
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 13 hr 25 min
  • Narrator: John Telfer
  • RRP: $24.99

A Life Too Short

The Tragedy of Robert Enke

Formats & editions
EBook
29 Sep 2011
Audiobook
14 Jun 2012
Paperback
15 Jul 2012
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The internationally bestselling biography of Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who took his own life.

Why does an international footballer with the World at his feet decide to take his own life?

On 10 November 2009 the German national goalkeeper, Robert Enke, stepped in front of a passing train. He was thirty two years old.

Viewed from the outside, Enke had it all. Here was a professional goalkeeper who had played for a string of Europe's top clubs including Jose Mourinho's Benfica and Louis Van Gaal's Barcelona. Enke was destined to be his country's first choice for years to come. But beneath the bright veneer of success lay a darker story.

In A Life Too Short, award-winning writer Ronald Reng pieces together the puzzle of his lost friend's life. Reng brings into sharp relief the specific demands and fears faced by those who play top-level sport. Heartfelt, but never sentimental he tells the universal tragedy of a talented man's struggles against his own demons.
  • Published: 14 June 2012
  • ISBN: 9781448124626
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 13 hr 25 min
  • Narrator: John Telfer
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Ronald Reng

Ronald Reng has been based in London for the last five years as a freelance sports journalist. He has written about English football for, amongst others, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, and Zurich's Tagesanzeiger.

Also by Ronald Reng

Keeper of Dreams
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Praise for A Life Too Short

One of the most remarkable sports books ever written… A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke… stands as the definite work on mental illness in football

Sam Wallace, Daily Telegraph

Incredible… It’s a stunning, fascinating and ultimately heartbreaking piece of work that has done so much to further the understanding between mental illness and sport. It is also a reminder that, for all the status and all the luxury which come with being a professional footballer, those lucky enough to make a career from the game are still human beings, too

Tom Hopkinson, People

An intensely moving book that transcends football

Raphael Honigstein, Guardian

Deeply affecting

Ian Hawkey, Sunday Times

A tragic book, but a brilliant one. Reng's is one of the best sports books to have been published in years

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung