Brian Winter

Pelé

Legendary professional soccer player, Pelé, discusses the recent history of the sport, his experiences working as an ambassador with charitable organizations and the positive, transformative power that the game can have on struggling communities and nations. 75,000 first printing.

Why Soccer Matters

Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Presents a memoir of the former Brazilian president, who discusses the complex history of his country, the political, social, and economic obstacles he encountered in his efforts to modernize it, and his successes in bringing about stability and prosperi

A Memoir

The Accidental President of Brazil

After moving to Argentina on a whim, Brian Winter, a young American reporter, embarks on a crusade to learn that devilishly difficult dance that demands both discipline and passion: the tango. While he dances the night away in the milongas with the fiery denizens of Buenos Aires, the country around them collapses, gripped by inflation, street riots, and revolution. In a book that is part travelogue and part history, the author evokes his immersion in a dark underworld. He visits old dance salons, brothels, and shacks on the dusty Pampa, searching for the tango's shady origins in the hope that understanding may help him dance better. Along the way, he discovers that the tango, with its tales of jealousy, melodrama, and lost glory, may hold the secret to the country that is inexplicably disintegrating before his eyes.

A Yanqui's Missteps in Argentina

Long After Midnight at the Nino Bien

In 1999, twenty-two-year-old Brian Winter packed his bags and headed for Buenos Aires. He learnt the language, got to know the people and suffered with them as the peso bottomed out. And he became infected by an Argentine obsession uathe tango. Since its birth in the city's streets and brothels in the 1880's, tango has remained the heartbeat of Argentine life, a barometer of its rising and falling fortunes. Flourishing in the grand milongas uadance halls uaof Buenos Aires' early-twentieth-century belle epoque, its supremacy was later challenged by the emergence of rock'n'roll. But tango survived to enjoy a renaissance in Argentina and across the world. LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT AT THE NINO BIEN explores Argentina through its obsession with the dance, telling of Winter's adventures in the sexy, over-caffeinated late-night world of Buenos Aires' tango halls. We meet local characters like El Tigre, a merchant marine turned tango professor and B-movie star, who has danced everywhere from Algeria to Japan; El Tano, a spectacularly foul-mouthed insurance salesman who scraped by for thirty years in Milwaukee giving tango lessons; and Hugo, a wiry mechanic who sometimes goes a whole week without sleep but manages (thanks to ten espressos a night) to cultivate a baker's dozen of stunning groupies. The tango at its heart is escapism, pure and simple ua'the vertical expression of a horizontal desire', and perhaps this explains why the milongas are so often packed to capacity at 4am on a Monday night. Part travel narrative, part memoir and part cultural history of a remarkable and troubled country and the dance that epitomizes it, LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT AT THE NINO BIEN provides a unique insight into the Argentinian soul.

Long After Midnight at the Niño Bien

Pelé—legendary footballer, humanitarian, and subject of the Netflix documentary—explores the sport’s recent history and provides new insights into the game. “I know in my heart that soccer was good to me, and great to the world....I saw, time and again, how the sport improved countless millions of lives, both on and off the field. For me, at least, that’s why soccer matters.” The world’s most popular sport goes by many names—soccer, football, the beautiful game—but fans have always agreed on one thing: The greatest player of all time was Pelé. Before Messi, before Ronaldo, before Beckham, Pelé had a stunning twenty-year career, where he was heralded as an international treasure. His accomplishments on the field proved to be pure magic: an unprecedented three World Cup championships and the all-time scoring record, with 1,283 goals. Since retiring, he has traveled the world as soccer’s global ambassador, relentlessly promoting the positive ways soccer can transform young men and women, struggling communities, even entire nations. Now, for the first time and with unparalleled openness, Pelé shares his most inspiring experiences, heartwarming stories, and hard-won wisdom. This is Pelé’s legacy, his way of passing on everything he’s learned and inspiring a new generation. In Why Soccer Matters, Pelé details his ambitious goals for the future of the sport and, by extension, the world.

Brian Winter

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