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Brazil Isn't for Beginners: An Outsider's Take on Life in Brazil: How a clueless Brit landed in Brazil and fell in love with the country
Paperback
Adventurers & ExplorersBiographies GeneralSouth America
ISBN13: 9786501763606
Publisher: Anglo-Brazilian Press
Published: Apr 23 2026
Pages: 264
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.66 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Brazil is not for beginners. - Tom Jobim
It's 1998. Roger Barlow is fresh out of university, fresh out of ideas, and dangerously open to suggestion. Brazil-distant, complicated and poorly researched-feels like the answer.
Armed with a guidebook, blind optimism and zero Portuguese, he accepts a teaching position in the Brazilian countryside meant to last just 12 months. Nearly thirty years later, he's still there.
A FISH-OUT-OF-WATER TALE, WITTY AND SHARPLY OBSERVED
From accidentally trying to buy a pregnant woman in a furniture shop to unleashing motorised mayhem in the heart of São Paulo, Roger navigates the messy, humbling process of adapting to a country that plays by its own rules but rewards those willing to learn them.
BEYOND THE CARNIVAL CLICHÉS
Brazil Isn't for Beginners is a witty, sharply observed memoir about culture shock, reinvention, and the strange process of building a life somewhere you never expected to stay. Along the way, Roger coins a few terms of his own for the moments Brazil doesn't quite have an English word for. Part travel memoir, part cultural commentary, it's perfect for anyone who has ever:
- Moved abroad or travelled deep into South America.
- Fallen accidentally into another life.
- Wondered what lies beyond the clichés, covering football, politics, language, travel, food, and beer.
A FRONT-ROW SEAT TO SPORTING HISTORY
Watch the drama unfold from deep inside the country, recounted in unique detail:
- Football Glory & Agony: England's agonising 2002 World Cup exit at Brazilian hands and Brazil's unforgettable 7-1 Mineirazo humbling by Germany.
- Copa Libertadores Bedlam: mass brawls, feisty Brazil-Argentina derbies, and the birth of Roger's own term for when a match tips into a free-for-all - going full Libertadores.
- F1 Drama: Lewis Hamilton's miracle final lap at Interlagos.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roger Barlow has lived in Brazil since 1998 and worked in translation and international communication for more than two decades. This is his first book.
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