From the acclaimed author of Netherland (a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the year):
the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might
change their fortunes. Mark Wolfe a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer lives in
Pittsburgh with his wife Sushila and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff born and
raised in the United Kingdom is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean
into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as Godwin”—an African teenager Geoff
believes could be the next Lionel Messi. Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague
Lakesha Williams Godwin is a tale of family and migration as well as an international
adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of soccer the perils
and promises of international business and the dark history of transatlantic money-making. As
only he can do Joseph O’Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family
love global capitalism and the dreaming individual.
