Ibrahimovic Zlatan - I am Zlatan: my story on and off the field

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUGUST PRIZE 2012

The best footballers autobiography of recent years is probably I Am Zlatan. In fact, having sold 700,000 copies in Sweden alone and been published in fifteen countries, its probably the bestselling European immigrants tale since Zadie Smiths White Teeth. Once you get past the obligatory snigger prompted by the phrase footballers autobiography, you can see that Zlatans book strangely resembles an earlier immigrants tale: Portnoys Complaint, Philip Roths classic novel about growing up Jewish in 1930s and 1940s Newark, New Jersey. Each mans story illuminates the other. Moreover, each illuminates the increasingly typical yet rarely heard immigrant experience. Most of the talk about immigrants comes from politicians pontificating about them. These books are wonderful first-hand accounts of what its like to grow up in an immigrant family. Though Zlatan and Roth are separated by an ocean and four decades, the overlaps are remarkable.

Financial Times (UK)

Might well be the most compelling autobiography ever to appear under a footballers name.

The Guardian (UK)

This is no PR fluff, nor the usual watered-down account of a pampered multi-millionaire. When was the last time a footballer still playing at the peak of his powers spoke out with such devastating honesty? And the whole story is delivered like he is sitting on a bar stool next to you, telling a tale over a pint down the pub. This book must be treasured.

Daily Mail (UK)

This is a snarling, fizzing, unrepentant firecracker of a book; if footballers memoirs bore you, make an exception for this one.

The Independent (UK)

It is so good. It is so bloody good. A future classic that will change Sweden. A masterpiece.

Aftonbladet (Sweden)

Good God, this is dynamite!

Sportbladet (Sweden)

This has to be the best contemporary depiction I have read of the Swedish working classes from the big city suburbs.

Kulturnytt (Sweden)

Sensationally honest and well written.

Expressen (Sweden)

2014 Random House Trade Paperbacks Edition

Copyright 2011 by Zlatan Ibrahimovi and David Lagercrantz English translation copyright 2012, 2013 by Ruth Urbom

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

First published by Albert Bonniers Frlag, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2011 as a Swedish hardcover edition and 2012 as a digital English edition. This changed version of the translation was published in paperback by Penguin Books Ltd., London, in 2013.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA
Ibrahimovic, Zlatan.
I am Zlatan : my story on and off the field / Zlatan Ibrahimovic with David Lagercrantz ; translated from the Swedish by Ruth Urbom.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8129-8692-1
eBook ISBN 978-0-8129-8693-8
1. Ibrahimovic, Zlatan, 1981 2. Soccer playersSwedenBiography.
3. Milan (Soccer team). I. Lagercrantz, David. II. Title.
GV942.7.I27A3 2014
796.334092dc23
[B]
2014006346

Cover design: David G. Stevenson
Cover photograph: Eric Broms

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