Death of a Boxer

After reading the story of the Scots fighter Mike Towell, who died in 2016 after a fight in Glasgow, Scotland, Pete Carvill set out to examine what that world means to those who choose to fight. He met young amateurs starting out in the trade and the men looking after them, doctors watching and observing the damage done. He met established professionals and those down on their luck and the retired lions still hankering for the feeling of being able to do what once came so easily to them. The book's action expands across the UK and into Europe - to Sweden, Poland, Spain, Germany - and then onto the United States,Despite the brutality of what the fighters chose to do Death of a Boxer seeks to humanise and find common ground with them how they meet the violence of their profession with love and grace. Death of a Boxer is not one story, but a series of love stories.

Pete Carvill, Runcorn-born, York-matured, seasoned in Sheffield and Tokyo, London-trained, Berlin-domiciled and honorary Canadian, presently visiting Vienna. He is an experienced reporter, writer and editor for over fifteen years covering news from Europe for various newspapers such as the New York Post, The Washington Post and the Guardian. He first put on boxing gloves twenty years ago and has only recently taken them off. When not writing he can usually be found in a forest, at a hockey game or watching two people punch lumps out of each other.