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  • Published: 15 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780701184421
  • Imprint: Chatto & Windus
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $39.99

World Cup Wishes





'Clever, moving and humane' Linda Grant

An intimate, warm-hearted novel about friendship, growing up and change

Four friends get together to watch the 1998 World Cup final. One of them has an idea: let's write down our wishes for the next few years, put them away, and during the next final - four years from now - we'll get them out and see how many we've achieved. This is how World Cup Wishes opens, and from here we watch what happens to their wishes and their friendships as life marches on.

The four men's bond is deep and solid, but tested by betrayal, death,and distance their alliance comes under pressure. Each friend offers a different perspective, though not necessarily a reliable one... and as they and the world around them change, so do their ideas of friendship and happiness. By the end they are forced to ask whether wishes can really be fulfilled. Or will their story turn out to be a requiem - for a generation, for friendship, or even for one of the four young men?

Once again, Eshkol Nevo has produced a novel suffused with charm, warmth and an astonishing wisdom.

  • Published: 15 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780701184421
  • Imprint: Chatto & Windus
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $39.99

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Praise for World Cup Wishes

It's hard not to be completely swept away by World Cup Wishes... very readable and eloquent, but above all it is moving

Liran Danash, Maxim

[Nevo] has an astute sense of drama and an ability to shape well-rounded characters...He has all the skills needed to fill a significant role in Israeli literature

Omri Herzog, Haaretz

It brings tender emotional savvy to bear on the question of whether friendships - particularly those tight, testy bonds between groups of men - help people to grow as individuals or, in fact, hold us back

Daily Mail

What started as a realistic novel about everyday life in Israel evolves into a story about storytelling. In doing so, it confirms Nevo as one of the best young Israeli writers today

Jewish Chronicle
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