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The Fighter

A True Story
3.66 goodreads logo

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( 61 ratings, 7 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Fighter by Arnold Zable is a compelling tale centred on the life of Henry Nissen, a legendary boxer from Melbourne. It delves into his rise in the sport and explores the challenges he faces outside the ring, emphasising themes of resilience and redemption. This memoir intertwines the personal and social struggles of Nissen’s journey.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you enjoy powerful tales of personal struggle and resilience, as it delves deep into the life of a man who battles against the odds, both inside and outside the ring. It offers an insightful look at cultural identity, the immigrant experience, and the human spirit's capacity for endurance, making it a captivating read for those interested in the intersection of biography and broader historical narratives.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Fighter tells the story of Henry Nissen, a champion boxer from Amess Street in working-class Carlton who rose through the ranks to battle some of the world's best in the 1970s.

Today, Henry works on the Melbourne docks, loading and unloading cargo, taking shifts as they come. His true calling, however, lies on the streets. He frequents police stations and courts, providing character statements and support, striving to offer the disaffected another chance. All the while, haunting his memories is the spectre of another fighterβ€”his motherβ€”and her heartbreaking descent into madness.

The Fighter is a moving and poetic portrayal of a compassionate man and offers a glimpse into the unnoticed recesses of Melbourne.

Arnold Zable is a writer who turns the unnoticed and the overlooked into something fine and lustrous." – Courier-Mail

Arnold Zable is a long-distance athlete among novelists, and his command of his material is superb... Years of reflection and his own life experiences have contributed to the mastery with which Zable explores the themes of displacement, loss, nostalgia, and homecoming in all of his books." – Canberra Times

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

The Fighter by Arnold Zable is described as a captivating and emotionally rich narrative, blending the elegance of a novel with the depth and heart of a memoir. The book is praised for its lyrical style, attention to detail, and capacity to evoke a powerful sense of time and place. Reviewers appreciate Zable's humane portrayal of resilience and compassion, capturing the personal stories behind historical events and illustrating themes of grief, survival, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of post-war Melbourne, Zable explores the inherited trauma of war survivors, presenting a slice-of-life tale that resonates with readers on both a personal and historical level.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781925355062

Publisher: Text Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 02 May 2016

Country: Australia

Imprint: The Text Publishing Company

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 208

About the Author

"

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