This book recuperates the narrative of Andrew Jeptha, a Cape Town-born boxer who was the first black fighter to win a British welterweight title in 1907. As a result of that victory, Jeptha was permanently blinded, and took to preparing a book titled A South African Boxer in Britain (1910). This volume explores the relationship between the life of a pugilist and his textual production, and locates the complex negotiations of a pugilist by situating Jeptha in a larger arc of the ‘care of the self’, extending from Greco-Roman aesthetics to the present. In the process, it investigates the strategies of care that were integral to opposing, confronting and living in the increasingly racialised world of the early 1900s.
Kicking ass and taking notes—what it’s like to be a woman in the ring. Alison Dean teaches English literature. She also punches people. Hard. But despite several amateur fights under her belt, she knows she will never be taken as seriously as a male boxer. “You punch like a girl” still isn’t a compliment — women aren’t supposed to choose to participate in violence. Her unique perspective as a 30-something university lecturer turned amateur fighter allows Dean to articulately and with great insight delve into the ways martial arts can change a person’s — and particularly a woman’s — relationship to their body and to the world around them, and at the same time considers the ways in which women might change martial arts. Combining historical research, anecdotal experience, and interviews with coaches and fighters, Seconds Out explores our culture’s relationship with violence, and particularly with violence practiced by women. "An important addition to women’s martial arts scholarship, Dean provides personal insight into the radical space women occupy in sport fighting. Seconds Out is a must-read for all fighters looking for mentors in the complicated world of martial arts." —L.A. Jennings, author of Mixed Martial Arts: A History from Ancient Fighting Sports to the UFC "Dean brings a fresh new female voice to the topic of combat sports." —Trevor Wittman, renowned MMA trainer, UFC analyst, and founder of ONX Sports "Trained in the discipline and art of both fighting and literature, Dean combines both with style. She honors the fighters, writers, and historians who have come before her and definitively ends the idea of women fighters as a novelty. Seconds Out is a must-read for anyone who feels the call of the bell and reverence for a good fight." —Sue Jaye Johnson
Told over the course of the ten rounds of his first fight, this is the story of amateur boxer Sunny. A seventeen year old feeling isolated and disconnected in the city he's just moved to, Sunny joins a boxing club to learn to protect himself after a racist attack. He finds the community he's been desperately seeking at the club, and a mentor in trainer Shobu, who helps him find his place in the world. But racial tensions are rising in the city, and when a Far Right march through Bristol turns violent, Sunny is faced with losing his new best friend Keir to radicalisation. A gripping, life-affirming YA novel about friendship, radicalisation and finding where you belong.
In August of 1920, women's suffrage in America came down to the vote in Tennessee. If the Tennessee legislature approved the 19th amendment it would be ratified, giving all American women the right to vote. The historic moment came down to a single vote and the voter who tipped the scale toward equality did so because of a powerful letter his mother, Febb Burn, had written him urging him to "Vote for suffrage and don't forget to be a good boy." The Voice That Won the Vote is the story of Febb, her son Harry, and the letter than gave all American women a voice.
WINNER OF THE 1996 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE. In the early 1990s, Donald McRae set out to discover the truth about the intense and forbidding world of professional boxing. Travelling around the States and Britain, he was welcomed into the inner sanctums of some of the greatest fighters of the period - men such as Mike Tyson, Chris Eubank, Oscar de la Hoya, Frank Bruno, Evander Holyfield and Naseem Hamed among them. They opened up to him, revealing unforgettable personal stories from both inside and outside the ring, and explaining why it is that some are driven to compete in this most brutal of sports, risking their health and even their lives. The result is a classic account of boxing that remains as fresh and entertaining as when it was first published almost 20 years ago. McRae approaches his subjects with wit, compassion and insight, and the result was a book that was a deserved winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize.
Fat City is a vivid novel of allegiance and defeat, of the potent promise of the good life and the desperation and drink that waylay those whom it eludes. Stockton, California is the setting: the Lido Gym, the Hotel Coma, Main Street lunchrooms and dingy bars, days like long twilights in houses obscured by untrimmed shrubs and black walnut trees. When two men meet in the ring -- the retired boxer Billy Tully and the newcomer Ernie Munger - their brief bout sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Ernie into the company of men and luring Tully back into training. In a dispassionate and composed voice, Gardner narrates their swings of fortune, and the plodding optimism of their manager Ruben Luna, as he watches the most promising boys one by one succumb to some undefined weakness; still, "There was always someone who wanted to fight."
Having learned how to box while in prison, fifteen-year-old Johnny sets out to discover if he can make a decent living as a fighter in late nineteenth-century New York City.
Rocky meets I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in this YA novel about a young female boxer who learns to fight for what she wants. *"A riveting pugilistic must-read." --Kirkus Reviews, starred Gravity "Doomsday" Delgado is good at breaking things. Maybe she learned it from her broken home. But since she started boxing with a legendary coach at a gym in Brooklyn, Gravity is finding her talent for breaking things has an upside. Lately, she's been breaking records, breaking her competitors, and breaking down the walls inside her. Boxing is taking her places, and if she just stays focused, she knows she'll have a shot at the Olympics. Life outside the ring is heating up, too. Suddenly she's flirting (and more) with a cute boxer at her gym--much to her coach's disapproval. Meanwhile, things at home with Gravity's mom are reaching a tipping point, and Gravity has to look out for her little brother, Ty. With Olympic dreams, Gravity will have to decide what is worth fighting for.
